


Muggle Mania

by Clonkie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cooking is basically potions, Gen, Hogwarts Inter-House Unity, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Neville Longbottom is a Good Friend, Smart Harry Potter, Snape isnt terrible, everyone is touch starved, life at hogwarts, muggles are awesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 37,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27550687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clonkie/pseuds/Clonkie
Summary: Basically a super humanized school life following Harry and his friends in second year where Harry uses muggle means to make his life easier.
Relationships: Filius Flitwick & Severus Snape, Harry Potter & Fred Weasley, Harry Potter & Hermione Granger & Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Harry Potter & Slytherin Students, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter, Minerva McGonagall & Severus Snape, Neville Longbottom & Harry Potter
Comments: 202
Kudos: 315





	1. Concoctions, Revelations, and Other Recipes

It was in between the summer of first and second year that Harry had an epiphany. He had always had a number of unpleasant chores from his relatives, but cooking was something he often enjoyed. While his upbringing was not something to be desired, it did occasionally come in handy at Hogwarts. The malice he faced from a dour potions professor with a personal vendetta against him, while being terrible, was never as bad as what he faced at the hands of the Dursley’s. At least he couldn’t lay a hand on him whereas that didn’t seem to apply to his relatives. 

It was during a particularly challenging recipe that Petunia wanted him to make for a business dinner that Harry made the connection. Potion preparation and food preparation were arguably the same thing with the exception of the more ‘out there’ potion ingredients. Both consisted of dicing, chopping, mincing, and many other skills Harry had learned early on. Seeing as he had been cooking since he was 6 he probably should have realized sooner. The biggest difference was that when cooking he didn’t particularly mind the differences to be that precise that the field of potions called for. 

So it started as personal potion practice. After the disaster that was first year potions he quickly realized that he had to take things into his own hands, instead of coasting through the school year, to escape ridicule; a challenging feat to say the least as the professor had it out to get him. Fortunately he made the connection sooner rather than later during the summer and it was a relief to be able to practice for school even if he couldn’t do magic. In the beginning he spent a great deal of time working on precision, but when he took too long hell was raised from Petunia. Having new motivation to speed up the process he became quite adept in preparation skills. 

It wasn’t hard to put into practice his newfound technique into Potions once school began. He clearly wasn’t good enough yet as preparation was only one part of pioneering and he still lacked the grace of timing, but there was a substantial improvement that Hermione noticed,

“Harry, when did you learn how to prepare shrivlefig?” Hermione was his partner for the class and was exceedingly pleased that he had at least some idea of what to do.

“I had a revelation of sorts”- he looked up and saw Snape glaring daggers at them- “I’ll tell you about it later.” He quickly went back to prep while Hermione was stirring and adding. Harry was no longer making Hermione wait up for him to finish preparing something, he was actually almost always two or three ingredients ahead of her and it gave him time to actually pay attention to what she was doing. He was amazed that he didn’t make the connection sooner, looking over the instructions on the board he could see the similarities to following a recipe. And if 9 years of living with and serving the Dursley’s had taught him anything, it was how to cook. 

As class was coming to an end, Harry turned in a neatly labeled potion that was the exact consistency and colour as described on the board. Not that it wouldn’t be when partnered with Hermione, but this time he felt more of a co-partner rather than just dead weight. The trio met up in the hallway outside the classroom and Harry turned to Hermione and Ron,  
“Want to go to the library?” Ron had stopped in his tracks looking stunned but Hermione had composed herself much faster

“Sure, Harry! Looking for anything specific?” she asked

“Want to get my homework out of the way, it is study period,” the two continued down the hall but stopped when they noticed Ron wasn’t with them.

“Where’s Harry and what have you done with him?” Ron started to catch up.

“Mate it’s me, I just figured I’m going to try harder this year at school and I don’t want to fall behind.”

“But we were going to go to play a pick up quidditch!” 

“I didn’t know about the game Ron, I really can’t afford to give Snape any more ammunition to pester me with. I need to work on this essay.”

“But it’s not due until Monday, and- and it’s Friday!” 

“If you haven’t noticed Ronald there is more than one class that gives homework, I think it’s great Harry is taking some ownership for his grades!” She beamed at Harry who ducked his head at the pride radiating off of her. 

“We can play quidditch another time. I’m going with Hermione to the library” Harry promptly turned down the wrong hallway

“Ahem, uh, Harry the library is this way…” Hermione pointed in the corridor opposite to where Harry had started making his way down.

“Oh uh right! I’ll remember that for next time” he scurried back and followed Hermione while Ron branched off, silently fuming. 

In the library Harry and Hermione found an empty alcove and Hermione started emptying her belongings onto the table. As she was taking out more books than seemed humanly possible from her small school backpack she spoke up,  
“So how did you become a potion connoisseur overnight, not that I am complaining, it just seemed like you knew what you were doing to some extent.” She quirked an eyebrow as she looked up from her seemingly bottomless bag.

“Oh uh well I wouldn’t say connoisseur... I just came to somewhat of an understanding over the summer that helped it make more sense. Along with the looming presence of the dungeon bat over my shoulder I have sufficient motivation to do better now” He smiled cheekily. Hermione’s eyes softened. 

“Professor Snape has to, as you put it, loom because potions are dangerous.”

“Hermione you can’t be telling me you think that the guy treats me like everyone else?! Even before I was the worst in potions, I still got the most detentions and points taken.”

“Okay well you have somewhat of a point, he seems to have some personal…”  
“Vendetta?”

“Fine vendetta, against you that is very unfair, but now that you’re better maybe he won’t loom as much.” 

“Hermione Granger not supporting a teacher!? Wow clearly we’ve both changed.” Harry laughed but quickly stifled it after being at the receiving end of a glare from Madam Pince.

“Well after the whole fiasco last year” She paused leaving them both to their thoughts of what happened to QuirllMort for a moment before finishing her thought, “Sometimes teachers don’t always know what's best… That doesn’t mean they don't deserve respect though, don’t take my words out of context!” She waited for Harry to absorb what she said and form his own thoughts.

“I agree that teachers don’t always know what’s best” he started “But what if they don’t deserve respect, if they don’t respect me then why should I respect them?” Harry genuinely asked.

“I think as a general rule teachers know what’s best, they did spend years studying their subject and many years teaching it, so who’s to say that a couple of fresh second years know better than them!” Harry nodded in surprise understanding.

“I suppose you’re right, as always” he laughed.

“As far as the respect thing goes, you grew up muggle so you know what I mean by the golden rule, do to others what you want done to you, it applies to a lot of aspects in your life really.” She began to theorize but Harry shrugged “hear me out, with teachers you have to give them a reason to respect you and if you respect them first there’s their reason. So because we both know you mean Professor Snape, don’t back talk and just take the sneers and hopefully when he realized that you have some respect for him as a teacher, doesn’t have to be as a person” seeing his face scrunch up in disgust- “just as a teacher and don’t undermine him as a master of his craft, he has his mastery and those take years to get so he’ll know better than we probably ever will when it comes to potions.”

“You know,” Harry interrupted her speech, “when I first learnt of the different subjects here I was really excited for Potions, it was probably the thing I looked forward to the most, I always loved chemistry at school and after the whole speech about stoppering death it sounded so cool, but then it went downhill from there. I didn’t even do anything except bugger up a few questions and then get called out as a celebrity for something I don’t even remember!” Madam Pince looked their way again and he mouthed the word sorry and her face softened a bit.

“He did seem to have it out for you, but he did save you from falling off your broom last year. And tried to protect the stone even though we thought it was him. A big miscalculation on our part.” 

“Yeah I suppose...” He trailed off. It was all so confusing, he seemed to hate his guts but then he goes out of his way to save and protect him. Why couldn’t it be just one or the other. Harry voiced his concern to Hermione and she responded with,

“I don’t know why he’s so inconsistent and begrudgingly helpful in emergencies. I think you should give him a chance or at least not focus on it too much. Your reputation does proceed you.”

“What do you mean by that?” 

“Well he seemed to think he had you all figured out by the first class so he doesn’t know the real you” She playfully punched his arm “And it’s not like you went into class with no bias as well. We already heard that people thought of him as the ‘dungeon bat’ but when you think about it, it is quite a rude nickname.” 

Harry thought back to their first class, while being excited he was already on the defensive so it did cloud some judgement he reasoned. But he was still a git to him either way. He mulled over his thoughts “So you’re saying that if I respect him, he will eventually respect me?”

“Well yes and no, basically you want to break that already formed picture he has of you. Hopefully by showing respect to him, he learns part of the real you and not the picture he’s made you out to be.” 

“I guess I can try. It seems easier than holding a grudge anyways, I’m already polite.” He brightened and Hermione went in for a hug. He flinched at the contact but reciprocated it anyways. “What was that for?”

“For being logical and thinking things through before you do something stupid like hate the guy for the rest of school. It’ll make life easier if he doesn’t get under your skin.” Harry gave a small smile and stood up to find some books for his essay. Hermione turned back to her books and continued working on a transfiguration essay, making some final edits before having to hand it in later today. They worked in amicable silence, occasionally voicing a question to the other. Hermione quickly found out that Harry, while not appearing outwardly smart and ambitious, really was quite adept at magic theory and knew a great deal but just didn’t showcase it. Harry realized that what Hermione had to say was quite thought provoking if you were attentive enough to find the actual thread of conversation amongst all the facts. They complemented each other quite nicely and before long they realized it was time for dinner. 

They packed up their books, Hermione piling way more than physically possible into her bag and gave Harry a sly look. ‘Magic’ she mouthed and Harry snorted. On their way out Harry gave a quick thanks to Madam Pince who gave a small smile in return also apologizing for being loud saying that he had just come to a new revelation and would aim to be quieter next time.  
“You’re always welcome here, dear.” She said on their way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello folks, so this is my first fic and I originally started writing it because all these ideas were things I wanted to read in fics but couldn't find, so here I am writing it instead! Anyways if the formatting is wrong (idk if I need to indent paragraphs or not...) please feel free to let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading, I have a bunch of chapters written but not beta'd so I hope to keep posting :).


	2. Food for Thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Convos between the kids in the great hall during dinner.

In the hall on their way down to dinner Hermione breached the silence.

“What changed Harry?”

“What do you mean?” he glanced over at his friend and she rolled her eyes.

“You know what I mean”一she waved her hands in exasperation一“this change in attitude; you’re now better at potions, you’re trying harder in classes. I think the only time we’ve ever studied in the library together was when we were researching dragons to help Hagrid.” She gave him a pointed look but soon softened. “Why?”

Harry pondered her words, why did he care if he did better, the Dursley’s never did. Actually they did care if he did better but not in a good way. He thought of when he brought back his perfect scored science test to show Aunt Petunia back in third or fourth grade. Instead of being proud and putting it on the refrigerator like Dudley’s barely passing math tests she threw it in the trash, accusing him of cheating. This demoralizing trend solidified itself when they withheld dinner for the rest of the week; he had to grab out of the bin half way through the week only to find his test covered in mouldy food. 

The past summer when he had had his realization about cooking vs potions he realized that he could actually use the Dursley’s punishments and chores to spite them. That’s what changed, he was done being controlled and managed. 

“I think it is because I realized who I want to be rather than who I’m expected to be,'' he answered cryptically. She seemed to take his answer at face value and dropped the matter. They arrived at the great hall and had settled across from a disheveled Ron and an earthy smelling Neville. Dinner appeared and everyone started to fill their plates. Harry paused mid scoop, mash threatening to fall, and thought about where all the food actually came from, obviously someone was doing all the cooking, but he had never thought about it much.

“What are you thinking about Harry?” Neville questioned as Harry just sat, looking at the food.

“Oh um, actually do you know where the food comes from?”

“Well a lot of the produce is grown on the grounds in the secondary greenhouses, but the house elves are the ones that actually cook; they also clean too. I can show you the green houses if you’d like, they’re on the south side. The house elves stay in the kitchen normally, it’s near the Hufflepuff common room.” Harry brightened up and nodded in newfound understanding with an idea forming in his head. 

“Neville do you like to cook?” the complete conversation change shocked the boy,  
“I’ve never really had to cook so I don’t know if I like to or not.” It was Harry’s turn to be shocked, he turned to face down the table.

“Hermione, Ron? What are your thoughts on cooking?” Pulling the duo out of a conversation on table manners and Ron was quick to voice his opinion.

“Cooking is for girls,” Ron spoke through a mouthful shepherd's pie. Hermione was quick to react,

“Cooking is not just for girls Ronald! Here I was thinking that the wizarding world wasn’t misogynistic,” She stood up, leaned across the table, and cuffed him on the side of the head causing him to choke on his half chewed food. Turning back to Harry and a confused Neville she continued, “I don’t really cook a lot, but I know some people find it therapeutic and can make quite a decent career out of it.” 

“Hmm... And Neville you’ve never cooked before,?” He turned towards his other friend.  
“No, we have house elves at Longbottom Manor and when I’m not there I’m here.” He shrugged.

“Why are you so interested in cooking Harry?” Ron piped up after downing a glass of pumpkin juice. 

“I was just thinking about the similarities compared to potions and how a lot of muggle things are actually transferable to the wizard world.” 

“Why do you care about potions anyways? The greasy git makes it unbearable; I’m taking it until I can drop the class and be free from the bat.” Ron looked proud but Harry thought about the ignorance behind the quick dismissal of the muggle hobby as if it wasn’t worth mentioning.

“I’m trying something new,” he said with a shrug and opted not to rise to Ron’s bait about Snape. He turned back to Neville who seemed deep in thought.

“Well if cooking is anything like potions I don’t think I’d be very good at it.” His eyes downcast towards the forgotten food on his plate. 

“Cooking is like an easier potions, and it tastes way better,” Harry laughed. “With cooking you don’t have to be as precise and it’s all less volatile, so less mishaps,” Neville looked up and saw Harry smiling. “Nev, are you free tomorrow afternoon?”一he looked down the table一“Hermione you too?” He glanced over at Ron who seemed to have deemed the conversation too boring and was making conversation with Dean and Seamus. 

“I can work on my homework in the morning instead, what are you thinking?” Hermione peered skeptically at the two boys.

“I’m free whenever” Neville piped in.

“Great! I’ll meet you at the south side greenhouses at noon.” Harry gathered his bag and grabbed a roll, wrapped it in a napkin, and scurried off. 

“Do you think he realized that lunch is at noon?” Neville asked.

“I think so.” Hermione watched the doors start to swing closed as Harry turned down the corridor towards the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends, sorry the chapters are really short :/. When I first wrote this I didn't break it into chapter (it did start as a one shot so I didn't think it'd be that long anyways) so my first read through I broke it up and now is 50k+ and I don't feel like going back and messing around with that, sorry. It's also good though cause I have two friends betaing and we all have school to compete with so I don't want to burden them, but I also need their eyes otherwise there'd be a lot of missing commas... I digress. Thanks for reading! Take care and feel free to comment :).


	3. Preparations and Confrontations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's idea of how to help his friends starts to take shape while he prepares for the semester with a few bumps along the way.

Harry’s plan began to sprout in his mind and it would be that much easier after hearing that Hogwarts grows their own food. For him, cooking was the gateway into beginning to understand potions, maybe it could help Neville too. Harry was taken aback upon learning that his friend has never cooked. He had been cooking since he was six or seven so there were a lot of years under his belt already, but Neville was a pureblood so he supposed it made sense he hadn’t when Harry thought about it. Hermione’s experience was understandable if she had only cooked a bit with her parents. His thoughts lingered on his friends' fortunate upbringings as he made his way to the library. 

He pushed the door open and approached Madam Pince.

“Madam, would there be any chance that the library contains cookbooks?” He knew it was just easier to ask than to wander around, although he was still apprehensive about asking for assistance. It helped that Madam Pince seemed to have a soft spot for and, during their first year, had always been a bit more lenient when it came to their rowdy group.

“Hmm, cookbooks you say? I don’t believe we have a section dedicated to them but there might be one or two laying around, you never know.” She got up out of the worn wood swivel chair and beckoned him to follow her as she delved into the deep stacks. She held her wand at face level pointed up after having cast a wordless spell and consulted the glowing tip occasionally as they weaved around the large cherry bookcases. “What made you come looking for a cookbook?” she made conversation.

Harry figured it wouldn’t matter much if she knew to some extent and he was interested to see what an adult wizard thought of the whole idea.

“Um, well this summer I kinda realized that cooking is really similar to potions, and while I’m really rubbish at potions, I’m not too rubbish at cooking. It helps me if I think about it in terms of cooking and now I’m not mucking up that much in potions anymore, at least not as much…” He forced a cough and moved on. “ I have a couple friends who want to try cooking and maybe it could help them with potions too.” He paused waiting for the inevitable ‘that’s stupid’ remark he was so accustomed to. Instead she paused in the middle of the row and he shifted his weight from foot to foot as she turned around.

“Well child that certainly makes sense. I’m rather fond of baking myself, it’s a bit more challenging than cooking but not as hard as potions I imagine. Hmm, certainly an interesting idea...” She trailed off muttering to herself about asking someone part of the faculty about the implications but Harry quickly jumped in to shut that down. 

“Please Madam, I just want to see if it helps my friends. If it doesn’t then it’s just fun to cook with others, please don’t tell anyone else.” He looked up at her with his green, glasses clad eyes and hoped it was convincing enough.

“Very well. I can keep this between us for now.” Harry sighed in relief as they continued down the row in silence until they reached the end. She turned to face a book shelf, scanning the spines until one caught her eye.

“Ah here we are!”一she clapped her hand together and turned to Harry一“there are only two, are you interested in them both?” Harry nodded and she banished them to her desk. They quickly made their return to the front of the library out of the back stacks. 

“Do keep me updated child, it is an interesting idea.” She handed over the small stack of books he had accumulated on their way back with a soft smile. Harry thanked her and made his way out of the library. 

With a few hours until curfew, Harry ducked into an unused classroom on the sixth floor. Through the dusty, west facing windows he could see the student greenhouses and Neville walking towards the castle with a girl with dirty blonde hair. He settled down into a seat at one of the dusty old tables scattered across the room. Digging through his bag, he pulled out an old rag and a small bottle of cleaner, courtesy of one of the many supply closets, and wiped down the tables. Old habits die hard and the conditioning from Aunt Petunia reared its ugly head.

Harry always had an appreciation for clean things after growing up with Dudley and always being responsible for the cleaning. A few weeks after arriving at Hogwarts he stumbled upon an old supply cupboard with cleaning products during one of his late night wandering sessions and he opted to keep some with him. Try as he might, Filch could not clean the whole castle alone and while the house elves helped, as he recently discovered, the castle was enormous. Harry knew what it felt like to be tasked with an impossible cleaning job, so he had taken to carrying cleaning supplies and occasionally helping Filch directly or just to tidy a room when he needed a quiet place to work. 

Spreading out his books, Harry started making a list in his spiral notebook of assignments from the syllabi that were handed out earlier in the week. All too quickly, two of the tables he had cleaned were covered in loose leaf parchment from his messenger bag. Wishing there was an easier way to keep them together, he made piles for each class, determined to be more organized this year than last. For only being in classes five days so far there was a surprising amount of parchments from the professors. After that was done, he pulled out his finished first draft of the potions essay from Wednesday’s lab and was determined to revise it following Hermione’s suggestions. 

With her small formatting and content edits fixed and some textbook questions for transfiguration done, he looked through the syllabus for Defence Against the Dark Arts and cringed. Apparently Dumbledore decided that after last year’s fiasco he wasn’t taking any chances with hiring someone who could be associated with ol’ Voldy so he chose the most incompetent bloke on the continent. Quickly speeding through the “about me” quiz for Lockheart he worked on his herbology essay. He chose to write it on a tomato plant because he was really familiar with them after tending to Aunt Petunia’s garden for so many years, he just hoped that his decision wouldn’t backfire even though there were no explicit rules against choosing a non-magical plant. Once his hand began cramping up with the excessive quill usage he spent the rest of the time practicing this week's charms一a fire making spell and the cutting charm一until he had them down pat, going as far as to learn Hermione’s iconic Bluebell flame. 

Excited that his weekend homework was all nearly done he pulled out the cook books from Madam Pince. The first one was a beginner recipe book with terminology at the end. He flipped through the recipes, settling on a simple pasta with a red sauce. Lots of ingredients to practice preparation cuts and it had simmering to boiling parts too. He made a list in his notebook of the ingredients and supplies they would need and decided to go to the kitchens to meet with the house elves he had heard about from Dobby and Neville; after all the green houses wouldn’t have all the ingredients they needed. The next order of business was to find a place suitable enough to host the cooking session that had ventilation charms already embedded. E figured that one of the unused potion classrooms in the dungeon would probably suffice.

Packing up his things, making sure to leave the space a bit cleaner than when he arrived, he made his trek down from the sixth floor to the dungeon. He wandered aimlessly in the opposite direction of Snape’s classroom until coming across a set of closed doors. The third door on the left was exactly what he needed and he reached into his bag, ripped a corner out of a scrap piece of paper, and stuck it between the wood and metal to be able to identify the door again when he inevitably forgot which room it was. He went in, only to find the room in disarray and a thick layer of dust covering everything. Immediately he began moving things around; tables went into a circle in the centre of the room, they only needed three anyways, and the rest went against the back wall. He washed out a couple of old jars in the ancient sink, conjured Hermione’s bluebell flame, and placed them around the classroom lighting it up sufficiently to go with the eerie, green tint emanating windows facing out into the Great Lake.

After some hard elbow grease--something Harry was no stranger to--the tables were clean and the dust he had stirred up was being ventilated out by the reactivated charms, the room was sufficiently prepped. Harry seated himself at one of the tables and wrote out three copies of the recipe on extra parchment so they could annotate on the recipes; something that helped him understand his textbooks was making notes in the margin and figured the same idea would apply here too. With one more copy still to go he cursed himself that he and Ron always got Hermione to do the duplication charm, and for not learning it himself. 

Casting a quick tempus to check the time once he was finished, he found that he still had forty minutes until curfew. A split-second decision had him headed towards the kitchens to ask the house elves if they could borrow some cookware. As he continued through the dungeon, he occasionally made a note in his notebook about some of the landmarks, taking extra care to remember where the actual room was after he put so much effort into cleaning it up. 

Ten minutes later he found the painting he was looking for, tickling the pear, the portrait opened obediently and he climbed through. That was the easy part. The hard part was that he didn’t know how to address the house elves without upsetting them too much, remembering Dobby and his reaction to basic human decency. He didn’t even know what a house elf even was before Dobby showed up in his room, offhandedly he wondered how many other magical things he just had no clue of. He remembered having to calm the creature down before he could get any information out of him. Like him, the poor elf seemed not to have a great home-life, and Harry explained the urgency of returning to Hogwarts to get away from his uncle. Harry quickly promised that he’d be extra careful this year--not that he wouldn’t be after last year, he was done with risks-- and that Dobby could check in with him once or twice over the school year to make sure he was okay. It took a while to convince the little elf, and with the threat of Vernon hearing the commotion during the business dinner he hastily agreed to ask for help if he absolutely needed it. That was enough to pacify him and he quickly disappeared without a sound. A little disappointed that the extent of his exposure to magic during the summer was from an elf, it was overshadowed by the excitement at being able to respond to his mail.

“Um, hello?” He stared out into the once bustling kitchen that had come to a standstill with his entrance. “I was wondering if I could borrow some pots and pans and take some ingredients, please…” he trailed off at the silent elves, feeling terribly awkward. Slowly the worker elves started to go back to their tasks but side eyed an older looking one that was approaching Harry suspiciously. The elf stood in front of Harry, only going up to just above his knees, eyes skeptical. After a moment the little elf finally broke the tension when she relaxed her posture. 

“Bippy, head elf, how can I help you?” Bippy looked up with big eyes awaiting a response.

“I’m Harry, nice to meet you.” The elf tensed in shock and Harry quickly continued on as others stopped and stared. “Um, right, I was wondering if I could borrow three pans, three pots, and these ingredients”--he handed over a list--“if that’s alright with you,” he added. Bippy looked at him, then down at the list, and back up to Harry. “Oh, um, I’m not trying to do your job.” Sensing a bit of protectiveness over the kitchen and its supplies he added, “I’m just helping some friends study potions, which is really similar to cooking, and I think it would help. The cooking I mean, it would help them to study potions.” He finished, hoping that his explanation was enough to ease any apprehension, but Bippy seemed to understand.

“Very well.” The elf summoned all the things, shrinking them down as they flew onto a nearby countertop. The food was wrapped in a stasis paper to keep it fresh, and the pots and pans were all nested in each other. Gathering up all his supplies, Harry bid his farewell, thanking the elves for the help. Forgetting their sensitive nature, many of the eves had burst into tears at the show of kindness and Harry quickly scrambled out of the portrait before they could bombard him further. 

Harry quickly made his way back to the set up room, only having gotten turned around once before he saw the tapestry of seagulls holding books and remember to turn right. He deposited everything onto a table and backed out of the room, extinguishing the flames completely before leaving. A quick tempus showed he had five minutes to get back to Gryffindor tower and he might just make it if he didn’t stop along the way. 

Unfortunately, Harry Potter’s luck only seemed to work in life or death situations. Rounding the last corner on the final floor of the dungeons, a part of the castle Harry was actually familiar with, he ran head first into the potion’s professor himself. Tripping over the flagstone, he staggering back as the professor reached out and grabbing his arm. Harry jerked back before completely falling and winced as Snape inadvertently grabbed some of his bruises. Quickly righting himself, Snape looked down his long nose at the flustered boy.

“I see you are arrogant as everーrunning aroundーlike you own the place.” Harry shifted on his feet, avoiding eye contact.

“Sorry sir, I didn’t want to be late for curfew, sir.” Harry looked down, waiting for the sneering remarks. 

“Thinking the rules don’t apply to you, Potter? No running in the halls.” Snape jibed, not as cruel as normal but the conversation wasn’t over yet. 

“Sorry, sir. I just didn’t want to be late…” He trailed off quietly, still not meeting the professor’s eyes.

“5 points from Gryffindor for breaking the rules, another 5 for breaking curfew.” Harry’s head snapped up just as Snape’s tempus dissolved into the air, the remnants of 9 o’clock lingering as if taunting Harry. He took a deep breath and looked at Snape.

“May I go, Professor?” Green eyes met steely grey. A curt nod from the indifferent professor dismissed him.

“Thank you, professor, have a good night sir.” With that Harry sped around another corner and disappeared leaving a perplexed Snape. Normally he would have argued about the unjustness of being kept until curfew, but he’d been caught running and knew that warranted points, so it wasn’t even a valid argument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Folks! Here's a longer chapter for ya. It's been fun editing and refining my actual work into something I actually don't cringe at while reading. I hope you like where it's going. I really like reading about the mundane school things and the logistics of what it's actually like going to a magic school, but if y'all don't, please let me know and I'll take some of it out :). The next chapter is kinda short again so I'll hopefully have it out by next weekend but also life happens... I'll try my best. I'm really enjoying reading your feed back so feel free to comment on things you like, or things you don't. Take care friends!


	4. Different colours; same ties.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some revelations in the Gryffindor common room that make strides towards inter-house unity.

Harry climbed through the Gryffindor portrait four minutes after curfew. Ron caught his eye from the sitting area and called him over.

“Harry! Where’ve ya been mate?” He clamoured up from the couch, leaving his quill and half finished essay on the coffee table. Ron grabbed Harry’s upper arm一missing the wince一and ushered him over to where the small group was working on their homework. 

“I was just out Ron, don’t worry.” Harry responded. At the sound of his voice, Hermione looked up, smiled, and finished her last sentence with a flourish.

“Harry! I was worried about you, you ran off during dinner and we didn’t know where you went.” She looked over between Ron and Harry, but Ron was picking his quill while glaring at his unfinished essay.

“I’m okay, Mione, really. I just had an idea for tomorrow. Afterwards I worked on homework. Would-”

“What’s going on tomorrow, mate?” Ron interrupted, attention drifting away from his assignment. 

“Oh Hermione, Neville, and I are going out to the greenhouse at noon to-” 

“Oh boring,” he interrupted again. “I thought it was something cool, not just herbology.” Ron wrinkled his nose and directed his attention back to his nearly empty parchment. Harry looked over at Hermione who just shrugged. Ron then brightened up and turned back to Harry. “Think you could give a mate a hand and let me see your essay? You said you were doing work earlier, did you finish it?” He looked up hopefully. Harry bit his lip and shifted from foot to foot before coming to a decision. 

“Sorry mate, no can do. I did a bunch of research so I don't want the professor to think I copied you...” He quietly trailed off at Ron’s betrayed look.

“But, Harry! We always copy off each other." Harry avoided his gaze.

“Yeah, last year we did… But I didn’t really like doing that.” He said quietly. Fortunately Hermione came to his rescue.

“Ron, really, we’re not just first years any more! You should be able to do your own work without having to cheat off other people. Especially if they don’t want you to. For shame!” She shook her head in disappointment and Ron’s face flushed.

“Fine一” Ron pushed himself to his feet, “一I’ll go find some real friends to help me with my homework!” Ron grabbed his mutilated quill and crumpled parchment before stocking off. Harry felt miserable; he didn’t mean to drive his friend away. Hermione beckoned for him to sit and Harry plopped down right on the floor in front of the fireplace, cradling his head in his hands. Hermione looked down at her friend but before she could say anything Neville spoke up as he rounded the couch to sit with Harry.

“You did the right thing, Harry. Ron should be doing his own homework. Like Hermione said, we’re in our second year, and if he thinks friendship is just about exploiting each other, then he shouldn’t have been in Gryffindor. It sounds more Slytherin to me.” Neville looked at his friend who seemed ready to reply when the Twins entered the common room from the boys’ dormitories staircase after passing Ron on the way up. 

“Our Ronnykins, in Slytherin?!” George grinned and shook his head while looking at his brother.

“No way!? Never would have happened in a million years.” Fred laughed and they sat on the empty couch opposite the armchair Hermione was occupying. Harry seized the opportunity and turned towards Neville. 

“You know, Neville, the sorting hat almost put me in Slytherin, so they can’t all be bad. I just think Ron is being... a-a bit unreasonable. Slytherin’s just got a bad rep.” He thought back to his and Hermione’s conversation about reputations proceeding themselves, and how biased he was towards Slytherin when he first came to school. The twins interrupted his train of thought.

“Harry一” Fred said,

“Potter.” George continued,

“A Slytherin!” They announced together. Harry shied away, but nodded. Fred’s gaze softened and he turned to lean against the arm of the couch.

“You know, I don’t know about ol’ Georgie-poo here一” He stuck his thumb out, facing towards George “一but I was almost put in Slytherin too.” Fred got up from the couch and settled on the ground in front of Harry and George was quick to join them. With a quick look towards Hermione, he began chuckling.

“Really? You, in Slytherin? Actually, you know what, I see it. You're really sneaky.” Harry gave him a small smile and George continued “Freddy-pie, I didn’t want to be separated from you, but the hat said Ravenclaw would have been a good fit for me.”

George comfortingly patted Harry’s shoulder but he grimaced at the pressure on his sore shoulder. His face taken completely the wrong way, George was quick to defend himself. “I always love experimenting and researching new things, so it probably would have been a good fit.” He crossed his arms defensively as Hermione quickly jumped in.

“I believe you George, and I’m sure Harry does too.” Harry gave a nod and Hermione continued. “Ravenclaw was also my second house, but the hat chose Gryffindor for who knows why.” Hermione laughed and George loosened up a bit. Neville chimed in too.

“How different would we have all been if we were in other houses. I was close to being in Hufflepuff but I wanted to follow my parents… They are both Gryffindors too.” 

“I think there are good things and bad things to all houses. If I had been in Slytherin, Neville, you and I probably wouldn’t be friends. Think of all the people in other houses who, maybe if we were put together, then we would’ve been friends…” Harry trailed off thoughtfully, as his mind drifted to Draco and smirked.

“What’s so funny?” Fred questioned.

“Just thinking about if Malfoy and I were in the same house, probably a good thing we aren't. At least I would have had you Fred.” Harry looked up at the older boy’s grinning face as he ruffled Harry’s hair. 

“You would have had me no matter what house you were in. I like you for you, not ‘cause you wear red and gold. Green would have complimented my complexion better though, I think.” The group all laughed. Harry remembered about the outing tomorrow.

“George, Fred, are you busy tomorrow?” He probed, they probably would have liked cooking for the food not for the help; they were already wizzes at potions.

“Sorry Harrykins, got plans” George said and Fred’s eyebrows shot up his face.  
“This is the first I’m hearing of these plans….” Fred accused.

“Just thinking of the whole house unity thing and how we could have been with other people and all that. A few Ravenclaws are having a study and veg session, they’ve invited me a couple times over the years, figure I’ll join ‘em this time. You know, branch off, new friends.” He smiled, genuinely excited, and Harry saw Fred process the words.

“Apparently I’m free tomorrow, what are you thinking Harry?” He looked a little lost but seemed to be trying for George’s sake.

“Meet us at the secondary greenhouses at noon tomorrow.” Harry extricated his limbs, grabbed his bag and started to make his way towards the stairs.

“But what about lunch?” Fred looked over.

“Don’t worry, I got it covered.” He saluted them and climbed up the tower. He could hear them continue to discuss their alternate houses as he approached his dormitory door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends, short chapter, but here none the less. I'm trying to post once a week, I need some time to edit and then get my friends to edit too so I appreciate everyone being patient. I'm in the last 2ish week of my first term of school so I'll try and edit some stuff over the break. Hope y'all enjoyed it. Feel free to leave a comments. Take care folks :).


	5. Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some magic theory and convos with a certain red head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer from my beta! This chapter does not contain any cooking and they're disappointed.

The next day, Harry was up bright and early as per usual. Before anyone woke up, he showered and changed into some of Dudley's old castoffs. They hung off of his skinny frame and Harry wished he had his own clothes, or could at least go out and buy some. Silently making his way through the dorm, he grabbed his bag and the book off his night stand he’d read last night, 101 Random but Useful Charms for Everyday Use, and headed to the common room.

Harry settled into one of the many window seats situated around the circular common room. The sun was just peeking out over the horizon, illuminating his bag, as he pulled out his potion essay. 

After half an hour of revision and fact checking he was satisfied with the results. In the past, he never tried hard enough on school work to be proud of it, but after reading it one last time he couldn’t help but smile to himself. It was a nice feeling, knowing that you’ve worked hard on something and it’s actually somewhat good. Before he went too far over editing, he put away his work and pulled out his book. He was 15 spells in and overall it was an intriguing book. The shelf he had found it on when he was getting the cook books hadn’t seemed to be disturbed for years judging by the dusty cover, but Harry couldn’t imagine why because it seemed really practical. 

He rummaged through his bag to find his notebook and continued to write out the interesting charms, draw the hand movements, and make note of the page number before moving on. He came across the expansion charm and was immediately interested. It was obvious Hermione already mastered it as her backpack seemed bottomless so he decided he’d ask her to help explain it, as the wand movement looked complicated and there were two incantations. 

Just for jokes, when he first started reading the book the hair cutting spell, Crinis Perseco, stood out to him. The more he thought about it though, the more he realized that he was never really into the way his hair was untameable, but he had never known how to fix it. He made note of the charm and told himself to think about it later because as it stood, he had a strong urge to just chop it off and start fresh. 

There was also the comperio spell which worked similarly to the ‘control F’ function on a muggle computer but for books. Harry instantly started to learn that one because it would make not only homework, but just general life infinitely easier. He began testing it out on his book; it only took a couple tries to get some results. His book used the word ‘spell’ 134 times and it highlighted the word on the page as well as the edge of each page where the word appeared. While it was dead useful, it seemed to be finicky and took a lot of effort to hold. Harry found himself actually excited for researching his homework in the coming week just to try the spell out.

The last one was more of a charm but still was useful. It was a modification of tempus, but instead of having to cast it with a wand every time, just tapping the spelled/charmed object would reveal the time. So, in natural Harry fashion, he charmed a burn scar on his wrist instead of an actual object, despite all the warnings he’d heard from both McGonagall’s and Flitwick’s classes. 

Thoroughly pleased with how his morning was going, he didn’t notice the other people slowly trickling out of the common room to go to breakfast; or the same people coming back. He was too busy being hit with the inspiration to make sticky notes like in the muggle world. 

Using a quick cutting spell he practiced yesterday, he trimmed an empty piece of parchment into neat little squares and applied a low grade sticking charm to half of the back. Harry was able to make the parchment temporarily stay, but also be movable to see what was underneath without hurting the book. It was perfect for taking notes in books without damaging the text.

His flurry of excitement was disturbed when Ron tapped him on the shoulder and surprised him into sending his belongings into disarray.

“Sorry, mate. Was wondering if you’d like to go flying?” Harry thought it over for a moment. Ron was being friendly, so he should be friendly too, right? Even though it hurt when he walked away last night, Hermione’s words from their conversation rang through his head.

“Yeah sure, let me just pack up.” Ron beamed and waited for his friend to clean up. Harry dashed back upstairs to grab his broom and they made their way out to the pitch.

It was a beautiful, unseasonably crisp September day. Not a cloud in sight and the temperature was perfect for jumper weather. He and Ron both mounted their brooms and flew in lazy circles around the pitch.

After a while flying around, dodging, and racing Ron crouched on his broom to catch up to Harry, who slowed down to a leisure pace. Ron cleared his throat nervously.

“Mate, I uh, I want to say sorry about last night. I thought about it a lot and I really was a rubbish friend. I’d understand if you don’t want to be best mates anymore…” Harry jumped in.

“Ron, it’s not that I don’t want to be your friend! It’s just that sometimes you don’t really think that much, which I know you can do cause you’re amazing at chess. Do you really think you’d be able to skive off homework for all of Hogwarts, I mean we’re not first years anymore and I want to be better in school. I want to be me, the real me, not some expected version of me. I like school and learning new things. You know how absolutely bonkers it was to realize that there was an entire new world I didn’t know about that has magic? I mean come on, we’re flying on broomsticks right now!” Harry let go and gestured emphatically to them hovering in the middle of the pitch, 10 meters in the air. 

“Yeah, I have to grow up. I get that. It’s just weird how much you’ve changed from last year, but I suppose I get what you’re talking about.” Ron hung his head in thought.

“This is the real me Ron. Last year was a lot of change for me, to find out I was not only a wizard but also some saviour of the wizarding world! It was a lot so... I kinda just did what people expected一” Harry sighed and continued “一but now I’ve had time to process the whole wizard and magic thing and think how I fit into that, now I’m trying to be me.”

“Wow, I guess I still have some soul searching to do. Mates?” Ron held his hand out and Harry took it. They smiled and Harry turned to Ron.

“Find out who you want to be, not what your family expects. We can still be mates of course, but we don’t have to do everything together, we have different interests, Quidditch isn’t my favourite, I just really like flying, and you’re brilliant at chess. You can have other friends and so can I.” Harry’s smile softened and they descended. Ron offered to take his broom after they dismounted.

“I think I’m going to go see what Dean and the other guys are doing. I still don’t think plants are all that interesting, but have fun at the greenhouses.” Ron smiled back.

The boys parted ways, Ron towards the Castle and Harry towards the greenhouse. Both feeling a bit lighter and a bit happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks, hope all is well. Trying to keep a steady weekly update schedule, but my first term of school is drawing to a close so hopefully I'll be posting a little extra, or at least have a back log of edited stuff. I originally had a really long chapter, but then I hadn't edited it enough for my betas to read so I just sent them half and so here it is! *Jazz hands* *nervous laughter*.Anyways, hope you like it. There isn't really Ron bashing but he's not a main, I don't really think that his and Harry's friendship was that healthy in the series, so it's not a big aspect in this fic. Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments, I'd like to hear y'all opinions :). Take care friends.


	6. One Big Happy Kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally our kiddos start cooking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to dedicate the beginning notes to weird things my betas say to each other when editing cause a) it's hilarious b) they fix so many grammar problems, they deserve some recognition. :)
> 
> "You are the comma queen, the queen of grammar and sentence structure. you must bring order to the paragraphs" -M
> 
> "Well you are the word matriarch! I just add toast*, and do sentence stuff." -C
> 
> * C has started calling commas toast after telling me that two commas are a comma sandwich, so a single comma is now toast.

Harry rounded the corner and saw Fred leaning against the south wall of the castle.

“So, you and Ron make up?” He questioned.

“Something like that. We had a good conversation, and are still friends, but he needs time to come to terms with the ‘new’ me, I guess. Find out who he wants to be other than what he’s expected to be. He’s gone to hang with the other boys.” Harry shrugged off Fred’s shocked face. 

“I’m surprised you were able to talk some sense into him.” Surprised seemed to be an understatement because Fred looked completely flabbergasted. Harry knew from last year that Ron had always been a bit hard-headed and stubborn in his ways; so for him to be so open to change was a bit surprising. But maybe they weren't giving him enough credit, Ron did have big shoes to fill, having five older brothers and all.

“I think this year we all are going to change, at least a little bit. See even with you一”   
Harry pointed at Fred and he jokingly looked over his shoulder and pointed at himself.

“Me?” Fred questioned.

Harry chuckled, but kept going.  
“I don’t remember ever having a conversation with just you before. It’s strange not having George around.” Seeing his sheepish reaction he quickly continued. “Don’t get me wrong, George is great, but I also like just talking to just you. You’re a little more mellow, George is like a jack-in-the-box...” Seeing his friends' confused face, he added. “Muggle toy, hard to explain.. Anyways, you’re a little more predictable and less tiring to be around.” Harry gave a goofy grin and Fred pushed off the wall, wrapping an arm around Harry’s tender shoulder. Fred squeezed in a brotherly way, leading Harry to breathe in sharply, suppressing his pain. Fred immediately let go and spun on his heels to look Harry over. 

“Blimey! Harry, Harry! Are you alright?” He looked worried but Harry forced a smile, which may have come across as more of a grimace.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, just sore, that’s all. Ran into a wall in the dark and banged up my shoulder.” Harry gave a lopsided grin and Fred backed off, but only a bit.

“If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure, thanks though.” Fred looked like he wanted to ask another question, but reluctantly dropped the matter instead.

“Soooo, what’s so special about the greenhouse, other than carnivorous plants, of course?” Harry chuckled, thankful for the distraction.

“Did you know Hogwarts grows a lot of their own produce? ‘Cause I didn’t, at least, not until recently.” Harry shook his head in amazement. Magic was cool, but he still had a special part in his heart for the more mugglier things, like gardening.

“I didn’t know that specifically, but it makes sense. At home, we grow a lot of our own food, too, but that’s just because it’s easier that way. So what? We’re going to look at The Hogwarts Cucumbers or something?”

Harry gave an airy laugh, but shook his head.

“Have you ever cooked before? Ron had some ass backward idea that cooking is for girls and Neville’s never cooked anything before!” Harry turned and looked at Fred as they arrived at their destination, waiting out front for the others.

“I’ve helped Mum cook, but with the Trace there’s not much I can do. I never really thought about it much, but I don’t really cook that often.” Fred looked off into the distance thoughtfully.

“Huh, must be a wizard thing… Anyways, this past summer I realized that cooking, the muggle way, is really similar to potions! It’s less precise and volatile, but there are a lot of similarities.” Harry beamed.

“Wow,” Fred paused to look at Harry for a moment. “I never thought of it that way before. When helping mum it’s mostly just chopping and stuff, which is basically the base for potion ingredient prep.” 

“Right! It’s crazy that I didn’t make the connection sooner, Merlin knows I cook enough to see the similarities.” Harry ranted to himself but Fred looked concerned. Harry froze for a moment, scared he said too much. He remembered the look on his friends' faces when they came to get him over the summer, when they saw how thin he was, and the empty food tins in the corner. Thankfully, he was saved by Hermione and Neville’s timely appearance. Harry untensed and greeted his other friends,

“Hey guys! Nev, I’m so excited to see the crops. We have to take a few things for what I’m planning, but I’m sure the kitchens won't miss it much.”

Neville smiled up to his friend.

“Does this have anything to do with your big idea you won't tell anyone about, or where you disappeared to last night?” Neville pressed.

“All in good time, my friend! Lead the way.” Harry ignored the questioning looks and dutifully followed Neville as the boy led them into the greenhouse space. The crops were sporting a full harvest and Harry gapped, he had never seen so much fresh food. His mouth was watering just thinking about their lunch to come.

“Okay so here’s a list for everyone, pick out the ingredients and meet back here in ten minutes. Make sure to get enough for all of us.” They all gave questioning looks but took the lists anyways. There were only two to three items on each list but needed time to find everything in the sea green plants. 

Harry quickly spotted the red bell peppers, picking four and putting them in his backpack, while everyone else shuffled around picking their own fresh ingredients. Neville was the first to finish because he knew the garden like the back of his hand, next was Fred, then Hermione, and finally Harry walked past them and led them back into the castle.

“Are you going to tell us what this is all about?” Neville questioned, helping Hermione re-adjust her armload of mushrooms and a couple stalks of celery. 

“I think Fred may have figured it out, but he had a little more context than the rest of you.” Harry was smiling. 

It was actually Hermione who spoke up first though.

“Does this have anything to do with the whole cooking thing at dinner yesterday?” Before Harry could respond Neville butt in.

“I mean what I said, Harry. I have no idea what to do in a kitchen.” 

“Ah Neville, but you do, and I’ll show you.” With a flourish Harry turned a corner leading down into the dungeon and the others made light conversation speculating what they were doing. Neville nearly dropped his arm-full of zucchinis, basil, and thyme when Harry finally stopped in front of a closed door deep within the bowels of Hogwarts. Harry grinned at his friends and flung the door open. Stepping inside, he went over to the ring of tables, putting his ingredients down, before Harry began lighting the flames in their jars, illuminating the room. The rest of the mix-matched group made their way into the dingy room and settled into the ring of tables. Harry came back and smiled at his friends at their stations. Last night he had turned in early so that he could sneak back down to add an extra spot for Fred.

Everyone started to unload their produce and disperse it around the room when Harry started to explain.

“Hermione noticed that I’ve been doing better in potions, part of it is that I’m applying myself and trying in class now, but I also had an epiphany this summer. I do a lot of the cooking at my relatives place over the summer and I’m pretty good at it if I do say so myself.” He raised his eyebrows jokingly a couple times before continuing. “I’m bad at potions but good at cooking, how? Well, what is cooking? It’s cutting a bunch of stuff up and adding it to other stuff. What is potioneering? It’s cutting stuff up and adding it to other stuff!” He looked around, Hermione looked pleased and intrigued, Fred smirked, but Neville looked nervous.

“But Harry, if you’re bad at potions then I’m absolute rubbish!” Neville looked on the verge of tears.

“But Neville, what you don’t know is that cooking doesn’t have to be as precise as potions and it’s a lot less unstable so one mistake isn’t going to blow up in your face. It’s the perfect gateway to getting better!” Neville didn’t look fully reassured. Harry rummaged through his bag and pulled out the rewritten recipe. Harry handed Fred his copy, opening the cookbook to the proper page for his own use, keen on trialing his prototyped sticky notes. 

“I picked a simple recipe with pasta and a tomato sauce, but it had a bunch of different cutting techniques like the ones we use in potions. You can write on your recipe and make notes on how the technique works for you, or make notes on stuff you need practice, anything really.” Harry turned to Neville specifically. “Just the act of improving my preparation technique helped with potions, Neville.” 

“Harry, this is brilliant! I never would’ve thought of using cooking to help with potions.” Hermione beamed and put her pot of water and cauldron stand off to the side, before organizing her vegetables for cutting. Neville fumbled around, looking at the others who all had some experience for guidance. He grabbed the closest vegetable and looked at his recipe. Fred, seeing how frazzled he was spoke up, 

“Neville, something that helped me a lot when I struggled with potions is read all the instructions through before you start, that way if you accidentally start to skip a step you might remember that there’s something missing and check again.” Neville smiled at Fred and began reading the recipe while Fred started chopping the ends off his zucchini. Hermione, having already looked over the recipe, was trying to coin her carrots, but the slices were uneven.

“Here Hermione一” Harry held up his hand, showing his grip in the chiefs knife “一try holding your knife like this, it helps.” He showed his hand, and his friend readjusted and tried a few more slices of celery. Instantly, his slices became more even and controlled. The group eventually fell into working silence and they each cut, measured, stirred, and snacked while making their meals. Occasionally, someone would speak up with a different technique or offer help but for the most part they focused on their meal, working in amicable silence. 

Two hours and four plates of pasta later, the group cleaned their stations and started to eat while debriefing. 

“So thoughts?” Harry nervously asked the group. He thought it was a good idea and had a lot of fun, but he also knew that many people viewed cooking as a chore and didn’t enjoy it.  
“Genius, bloody brilliant!” Fred said between bites of pasta. “You work on technique and following instructions, and get food out of it at the end! Way better than potions, I say. My potions don't taste half as good as this.” He pointed to his empty plate in his lap and smiled.  
“Harry, the connection between the muggle world and the wizarding world is so smart. I never would have thought of that.” 

“Oh ‘Mione don’t say that, you’re the brightest witch of our age.” Harry blushed, not used to getting this much praise, or any for that matter.

“I may be book smart, but you make connections, that takes some real creativity.” Hermione flashed him a winning smile.

“Harry, I think I learned more today than all of potions last year. I really think the prep work will help and I won't be as nervous around Snape now that I have some clue of what I’m doing.” Neville got up and walked around the table and opened his arms, Harry tentatively received a gentle hug that smelled of garlic. “Thank you” Harry just nodded.

“So, I figure we could do this again, maybe next Saturday? We’ll see how classes go this week and then work on the skills we need then. Let me know on Thursday what you guys are having trouble with and I can pick a recipe to help with that.” Harry gave a warm smile and gathered up the remaining ingredients and the stasis paper to bring back to the kitchens.

“Thank you, Harry!” Neville said as he walked out the door, quickly followed by Hermione after a short hug and goodbye. It was just Fred and Harry left to tidy the rest of the room before sealing it off for next week.

“Damn, Harry, this was honest to Merlin a genius idea.” Harry blushed and looked up at his older friend.

“You think so? I just wanted to help Neville and Hermione. Then George had plans and you’re basically a potion protégé, but I figured you’d like to have a distraction while George is off making other friends.” It was Fred’s turn to blush.

“Harry, I’m just mediocre at potions.” Shaking his head he lowered his voice, “But I appreciate the invite cause I probably would’ve just wallowed until George got back.” He looked away ashamed, but Harry enveloped him in a hug. 

“I’ll tell you what I told Ron, people are allowed to have other friends, and I get that you guys are twins and are physically identical, but you’re definitely not the same person.” Harry gave a squeeze and let go and started to extinguish the flames. Fred and Harry were walking up from the dungeon and were only two floors shy of the main hall when they ran into a group of Slytherins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I suppose I should be studying, but when have I ever cared about doing things I should...
> 
> Finally, some cooking! The whole point of what this was supposed to be about to begin with. Hope y'all enjoyed it. I'm really trying to make sure there are no plot holes, but if there's questions and/or concerns hit me up in the comments, I really love reading them, especially just discussing characterization and themes. (I'm a big nerd about that lol). Thanks for reading! Idk if there'll be a chapter over the weekend, I'll try. Like always, take care friends.


	7. Allies in the Snake Pit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Houses collide and our buddies have some important convos with the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per new tradition pre-chapter notes are dedicated to funny comments from my betas. This instalment we see M, who is now dubbed Espresso, share their commitment to betaing. :)
> 
> "Alright degenerates, I've had 6 espresso shots and am ready to commit my lifes purpose for the next hour solely to this fic. Screw my fic, this is the only important thing in my life." -M (AKA Espresso)
> 
> "... Go to bed" -C (AKA Toast)
> 
> As always thank you buddies, I really appreciate all the editing y'all help me with. :)

Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, and Theodore Nott, sat chatting on a seldom used staircase when Fred and Harry rounded the corner. Their conversation abruptly stopped, and all eyes turned towards Harry. Instead of drawing his wand, Harry took a deep breath and thought about his sorting. These people could have been his friends; they still could be.

Exhaling, he said, “Hey guys, just finished practicing potion prep with Fred in an old classroom. Here's hoping I’m not as rubbish as last year.” He smiled in a self-deprecating manner and all three Slytherins’ faces were blank. Harry was trying his best to seem non-threatening and open to conversation, but silence prevailed. Finally, after a tense minute of just staring at each other, Blaise spoke up.

“What are you on about Potter, why are you talking to us?” He gestured to the other two who silently nodded. Harry sighed and looked at Fred who just shrugged.

“Mind if we sit?” He gestured to an open step, the trio exchanged glances and eventually shuffled around, making room.

“My friends and I were talking yesterday about how the Sorting Hat wanted us in different houses, but ended up in Gryffindor anyways.” Eyeing Fred, who was smiling after he pieced together where the conversation was going, gave a nod as Harry continued. “How we all became friends in Gryffindor, but we wondered if it would have been the same if we were separated in different houses. Or would we have only been friends with the other people in those houses? Cause think about it, how many other friends do any of us have that are in other houses...” Harry paused. “So I guess in another life, we all could have been friends.” 

Waiting for the shoe to drop, the Slytherins all took a collective gasp at the implications of what Harry just said. Again, Blaise was the first to recover.

“So you’re saying that The Hat wanted to put you in Slytherin.” Harry nodded, adding,

“Fred, too.” He shot a small smile to his friend. Pansy interrupted whatever else Blaise was going to say by chiming in,

“And we’re just supposed to believe you. ‘The Chosen One’, ‘The Boy-Who-Lived’, was meant to be a snake and not a lion?”

“I haven’t done anything to try and deceive you, to be honest. Sure, I don’t like Malfoy, but I’ve probably talked to you all only twice last year. I don’t know you at all, and you don’t know me. Despite what everyone thinks, I hate all that ‘Chosen One’ stuff. I want to be just Harry.” He reasoned and the trio looked at each other, bewildered. Probably shocked that they were having a civil conversation with a Gryffindor, who happened to be Harry Potter, who also was meant to be in Slytherin. Because he felt the same way.

“Why aren't you?” Theodore asked.

“I only learnt I was a wizard on my eleventh birthday. My relatives kept it from me so when I learnt I was a wizard, Hagrid told meー” Harry tried to continue, but Pansy interrupted.

“YOU, didn’t know you were a wizard! That oaf, Hagrid, told you?” Her mask of indifference slipped and Harry was a little annoyed at her depiction of Hagrid.

“First, he’s not an oaf, he’s my friend. Although, he probably wasn’t the best choice as an introduction to the wizarding world, but he was still nice to me. I don’t really know what’s protocol, but that’s what happened.” Pansy shook her head and Blaise spoke up,

“Normally one of the heads of houses would visit the family and explain everything with pamphlets and books on the introduction to the Wizarding World.”

“Blimey, ain’t that bloody inconvenient cause that didn’t happen to me. Someone sent a bunch of owls to my relatives’ house with my Hogwarts letter when I didn’t get the first one.  
Eventually they got fed up with all the owls and took us to this crappy shack on the sea. Hagrid busted in at midnight on my birthday and goes ‘yer a Wizard ‘Arry. Next day we went to Diagon Alley to get my school supplies.” He finished. Fred snickered at his Hagrid interpretation and the other three, normally stony faced, cracked a few smiles.

“I can’t believe that was your introduction to the wizarding world.” Pansy spoke up.

“Yeah, really. When we were in Diagon Alley people were swarming us and I had no clue why. I didn’t know about all the Boy Who Lived stuff. Needless to say, going from a nobody muggle to a celebrity in the wizarding world wasn’t all that great. People knew more about my past than I did!” Harry narrated and Blaise jumped in.

“So you didn’t know about how your parents died until you were 11? How?” His voice was quiet but serious.

“Yeah… Um, my relatives aren't really the biggest fans of magic so they told me that my parents died in a car crash, thinking that if they ignored it and cut me off from magic I wouldn’t be a wizard. They weren’t pleased when the letters started showing up, to say the least.” They all just stared at him for a quiet moment.

“Damn, Harry. I didn’t know that...” Fred’s soft voice startled Harry. Regaining his composure, he cleared his throat and continued.

“Yeah, I, uh, don’t really talk about them that much. Not my favourite people, but they’re-um- family?” Harry’s voice rose at the end but thankfully Theo didn’t let anyone dwell too much on the statement,

“Still, doesn’t explain how you're a Gryffindor when The Hat wanted you in Slytherin.” he stated and Harry threw him a grateful smile for the topic change.

“I guess, after being bombarded by wizards at Diagon Alley, I escaped to go get my robes and who do I hear chatting up the store clerk other than Malfoy.” Pansy groaned and Harry flashed a grin. After seeing the Slytherins in a new light, he had come to find that there were actually only a handful of students per year with the pureblood ideology that flaunted it like Malfoy, everyone else were just overshadowed. 

“So you’re saying, us Slytherins have Malfoy to thank for missing out on Harry Potter in our house?” Blaise didn’t seem too impressed with Malfoy at the moment and for that he was grateful.

“Yup.” Harry popped his ‘p’ before coming to a realization. He was being really open. Normally he didn’t let his guard down, but Harry wanted them to at least be acquaintances. So he supposed he’d have to trust them a little bit. They didn’t seem to be all buddy-buddy with Malfoyーone of the reasons he’d decided to chance it in the first place was that they needed to be neutral. Nervously Harry cleared his throat,

“Also, um, I would appreciate it if this could stay between us. I’m a pretty private person and- um- I’m kinda trusting you guys that won’t spill this, which is really hard to do, but I figured it’s time to be nice and reach outー”The Slytherin indifference mask back in place, it was hard for Harry to see if they would tell anyone“ーcause as I said, I could have been a snake too, so we're not that different. But I’d appreciate that courtesy at least.” He broke off taking a breath before quickly adding, “I know Malfoy doesn’t represent you all, now at least, and that not everyone has the same ideologies, but at the time he was a big prat and I didn’t have much to go off of. But now I’d like a chance to get to know you a bit.” 

His heart was pounding and he chanced a small smile to the trio; they could easily say no and spill all of his secrets and normally he wouldn’t risk so much, but Harry really did want to get to know them. He knew he’d have to give them a reason to trust him, and if that was a bit of context so be it. The stairwell remained silent while the Slytherins looked at each other as if they were jurors. Harry looked up at Fred who didn’t look concerned in the slightest. Finally, Pansy broke the deliberation,

“Your secrets are safe with us, Potter. Now, what the bloody hell did Malfoy say to lose you.” Pansy replied and Harry sighed in relief. This was a good start. Pansy looked more annoyed with Malfoy than with him and he laughed lightly next to Fred, who was trying to keep a straight face.

“Thank you, it means a lot. Anyways, I hadn’t actually met him yet when I went into Madame Malkins, I just heard him spouting some pureblood nonsense.” The group collectively scowled and Harry knew he’d made a good decision trying to befriend them rather than others in his year. “I get there’s a lot I don’t know about pureblood culture, but Malfoy was saying muggle borns shouldn’t get to go to Hogwarts and it pissed me off. I was muggle raised, first time in the magical world I remember, so I was basically a muggle born in my eyes.” Fred nodded and so did the others. 

“A lot of the Olde Customs have been degraded by blood purists. Not everyone is that extreme. We don’t all think that muggle borns shouldn’t be allowed here. It’s more that they don’t respect the traditions, or make an effort to learn them, so they get a bad rep.” The others nodded and Harry realized there was so much more than just magic he had yet to learn about the wizarding world. 

“That makes sense. I still don’t like Malfoy though.” And that broke the tension that had started to form. “I don’t know if you know Hermione or not, probably because she answers every question in class, but she's muggle born and bloody brilliant. The whole ‘muggle borns don’t deserve to be here’ crap has to be fake because I’m pretty sure she has higher grades than Malfoy.” Fred laughed and chimed in,

“Mate, I’m pretty sure she’s got higher grades than everyone.” 

“Not everyone, I’m top in history.” Theo jibed, but Blaise elbowed him,

“You prick, nobody cares about history anyways.” He looked up at Harry and it was then that he realized that the Slytherins were just as on edge about this whole friendship thing as he was. Theo’s eyes were wide as if realizing that he might have said the wrong thing. Harry chuckled, relieved that they actually seemed to care about making this work. Theo, upon hearing Harry, calmed down a bit. Harry continued.

“When we were outside, Malfoy saw me and knew who I was, and offered me his hand for a handshake. He was such a prick and he reminded me of my cousin Dudley, so I just turned it down. Which I didn’t realize was that big a deal causeー” he pointed to himself “ーmuggle raised, right. I have no clue about proper wizard customs and to do that in the muggle world isn’t that big a deal. Clearly I did something wrong though, cause he’s been a right arsehole since then.” The others in the room were all stifling laughter and shaking their heads. Fred spoke up first,

“Mate you publicly snubbed the heir to the house of Malfoy, one of the sacred twenty-eight. Ha, accidentally too, even better. Probably hadn’t ever met someone who didn’t know who he was.” Fred was laughing by the end, but Harry looked horrified. Theo, seeing how terrified Harry had become, spoke up,

“Don’t worry too much. You didn’t know any better and there are formal apologies for that sort of thing, for the purebloods. You’re a half-blood so it’s not that big of a deal, only the purebloods really follow the olde traditions.” Harry regained his composure, thankful for the explanation. 

“That’s a relief, I don’t think I could stand having to apologize to Malfoy. When I saw him sorted into Slytherin I practically begged the Hat to put me anywhere else.” Harry sagged into the stairs waiting for someone to ask questions. Pansy spoke up first.

“So you just didn’t want to live with Malfoy?” She looked at him in disbelief.

“Well, he reminds me of my cousin and I already have to live with him at my relatives’ place, so I don’t really want to share a dorm with someone like him, too.” She seemed to understand. Theo seemed like he was going to ask a question but Fred cut him off,

“Hey, Harry, if we’re going to meet George, we’d better go.” They stood up and Blaise looked Fred up and down.

“Where do you fit into this?” Fred just laughed in response.

“My family’s all Gryffindors, you aren't the only ones with familial pressures. Also, my brother’s a Ravenclaw and I’m a Slytherin, together you get Gryffindor.” He smirked and broke the pack as he started to climb the stairs. Harry began to follow when Blaise addressed him.

“You aren’t so bad, Potter.” Harry pivoted on the stairs, looked down at the trio, and smiled.

“Neither are you guys, we should do this again, I’d like to get to know you all a bit more. We’re practicing potions again next Saturday, if you want to chat after again.” Harry raised a hand and waved goodbye, as he followed Fred up the stairs. Once reaching the landing Fred turned to Harry and said, 

“I think you’ve just started something very, very good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! Long note but whatever I posted twice this week so I can do what I please.
> 
> So I am free from Uni first term, who would have thunk. Anyways, I really want to get a bunch of editing done cause I haven't actually finished writing this, I have a bunch left to post, but the rough draft's not done.... So the goal is to get back log of stuff I've edited and then that way my betas can edit on their own time too. (They both are still cramming for finals so pls be patient, they're really great people who are majoring in sciences so idk how they have any time for me lol). 
> 
> In terms of the actual story I really like where it's going so far, I love the concept of inter-house unity because let's be real, in highschool you're friends, or at least acquaintances, with a bunch of other people you share classes with. So at Hogwarts, students would be friends with other peeps in other houses too. 
> 
> One of my Betas, Espresso, was really confused by the last little bit of dialogue Fred said about familial pressures so I'ma explain it cause the concept and theme behind it is based on a lot of what I've read in fics as well as the books.
> 
> Basically with wizarding culture, what my understanding of it is at least, there's a lot of pressure from pureblood families to be in a certain house, this is super prevalent within the old Slytherin families, like the Malfoy's or the Black's. So Fred was saying that even though his family might be blood traitors there's still that familial pressure to be in Gryffindor, and if you really think about it the ultimate Slytherin move would be to trick everyone and the Hat into putting you into a different house. Thus, I like to think, since Fred would have been sorted first cause of alpha order, he got the Hat to put him in Gryffindor using his Slytherin traits and then George reasoned with the Hat logically, like the Ravenclaw he might have been, in order to stick with his twin. :) 
> 
> Anyways, like I said I'm a big nerd when it come to this stuff so if anyone want to talk about it, or other stuff you like and/or don't like, shoot me a comment. I love hearing from you folks and I hope you're all enjoying it so far. Like always take care friends and please stay safe and be smart with the holidays. I'd really like to actually see my Uni campus one day rather than just online :). Thanks!


	8. Wallflowers and Well-intended Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry doesn't understand why people are complementing him and gets a little overwhelmed. An awkward run-in with some professors doesn't seem to help either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy friends! Our weekly instalment of "my betas are sleep deprived like the rest of us"! 
> 
> "ok so i might be currently filled with a lot of sugar so i can stay awake to study for my last final but i mean this sincerely when i say fuck yeah Slytherins reprrsent!" -Toast 
> 
> I myself am a rather proud Hufflepuff, close Ravenclaw, but Toast is 100% a Slytherin and was quite pleased with recent developments :). Enjoy friends and thanks SOOO much to my Betas who edited this monster of a chapter while simultaneously writing exams and studying.

It had been a long一albit interesting一day, Harry thought, as they emerged from the dungeon. The two boys stopped to rest in the main hall before starting their ascent up the many flights of stairs leading towards Gryffindor tower. It was still too early in the term that they hadn’t regained the stamina it took to navigate around a castle full of stairs, yet. It was only mid-afternoon, so a couple people were passing through the main hall, but no one stayed very long. While Harry caught his breath, Fred spoke up, 

“Was everything you told the Slytherins true?” He sounded more curious than accusing, which Harry was thankful for.

“Yeah. Like I said earlier, Malfoy doesn’t represent them all, and from the sounds of it he’s only a little less of a prat to his own house. They deserve to be trusted a little bit. I realize now that there’s a ton of prejudice towards them, all ‘cause one dude goes dark. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but look at Ron. He was being a prat about schoolwork and he's a Gryffindor.” Fred side eyed him, looking like he was about to say something but Harry cut him off to explain, “I’m just saying that the house doesn’t make the people, the people make the house. A bad person can come from anywhere. I was just using Ron as a less extreme example, he’s still a great bloke.” Fred waited a moment before responding, mulling over the reality his friend presented. 

“I suppose you’re right, but I don’t know how you’re going to convince others of that. It’s still weird to think that we just had a civil conversation with a group of Slytherins...”

“They’re just people who’ve been labeled. Hermione and I had a conversation earlier about personal bias and the wizarding world. The reason I’m not in Slytherin is ‘cause I met Malfoy, who was a self proclaimed Slytherin, and Hagrid had introduced me to ol’ Voldy’s history about how evil Slytherin was.” 

“That’s an interesting take on bias, I suppose you could use people’s biases to sway their opinions. Like how the Daily Prophet does.” Harry smiled at Fred’s remark.

“Exactly, you absolutely are a snake in a lion’s suit.” Fred smiled as he pushed himself off the wall, gearing up for the next flight of stairs. Harry followed suit.

They both fell silent around the fourth flight of stairs, only stopping when the stairs started moving and they had to wait for them to return. As they approached the portrait that guarded the Gryffindor common room, Harry spoke up,

“Hello again, Elizabeth, how’s it going? I heard there was a party in Mrs. Domencho’s portrait, did you attend?” Harry asked the portrait of the Fat Lady.

“Ah Harry一” she smiled at the glasses clad boy and turned blank face to the redhead, “Weasley... I am good, yes. The party was smashing, even Imogene turned up, hadn’t seen her in at least two centuries.” Harry smiled up at the woman and looked at Fred, who wore a confused look. Cluing in Harry introduced Fred to his painted friend,

“Fred, this is Elizabeth, keeper of Gryffindor. Elizabeth, this is Fred Weasley.” The portrait preened at the introduction and Fred seemed at a loss. His face flushed, and he cleared his throat before speaking up,

“Nice to properly meet you. Uh- I suppose I never really thought about you having a proper name and all. I’m sorry...” Fred dragged a hand through his hair, looking sheepish. Harry sent her an apologetic look.

“Not many people do.” She harrumphed. “Password?” 

Apparently small talk was over and Harry uttered the password. The portrait swung open with more force than usual, revealing the common room on the other side. The boys sensing the disgruntled portrait, quickly made their way in before she could do anything else.

“You really are the kindest bloke ever. I never once thought of talking to the portraits, let alone befriending them!” Fred seemed angry at his own ignorance, rather than at him but Harry still backed away, subconsciously distancing himself. “I have to rethink everything! How could I of been so blind. No one’s name is the Fat Lady一'' Fred started pacing around the furniture and waving his arms around, talking to himself rather than to anyone in particular “一That’s just terrible. I’ve never even questioned it because that’s what everyone calls her, but that’s awful reasoning. How many more things, as a wizard, am I missing because our culture is too ignorant to teach it.” Fred kept pacing around the round room. There were a few other students working around the room who had abandoned their work in favour of watching the red-head dramatically monologue.

Most of the upper years were ignoring the duo by now, but some of the first years were still astonished to be around Harry. He never liked attention, even as a young kid it was just easier一safer一to go unnoticed, but now Fred was drawing a lot of it. Harry watched tentatively as his older friend turned to face him. 

“One day! One day and my entire opinion of Slytherin changed. All because一” he pointed to Harry, who was perched on the end of the couch arm closest to the boy’s dormitory stairs “一of you. You saw a way to learn potions easier, and instead of keeping it to yourself, you showed it to those who needed it most. Then you strike up a polite conversation with three Slytherins. We were outnumbered, even though I’m older, they could have done us in and left us. It’s a pretty abandoned part of the castle, there wouldn't've been evidence... But no, you strike up a bloody conversation that had us all laughing.” Fred seemed like he was going to continue his rant but stopped short. Still pacing, he pivoted on his heel, looking towards Harry again. “You, Harry Potter, are bloody fantastic.”

Harry was blushing furiously, as he scrunched down into the wide neck of Dudley’s old sweater. Neither boy realized that near the end of the rant George had slipped into the common room followed in succession by Hermione and Neville. The three were frozen in the doorway until George broke away. Coming up beside Fred and putting his arm around him he spoke up,

“H’s spouting facts, you know. Your encouragement of inter-house friendships led me to meeting and befriending some of the Claws, who are super cool by the way.” The last part was directed at Fred. George was beaming, telling Fred about his afternoon of spell crafting and vegging with his new friends, effectively distracting his twin from his last statement about Harry. In the flurry of excitement, Neville and Hermione had joined Harry by the fireplace on nearby seats. Neville dusted his hands on his pants, looking over at his friend,

“He’s right, Harry. You changed all our perspectives. I never would’ve thought I could enjoy potions. After cooking, I went to the greenhouse and met up with some Puffs and we talked about the interconnectedness of herbology and potions and I really think I’m starting to get a grasp on potions now.” Neville gave him a genuine, warm smile and Harry shied away. He didn’t think it was him who changed their minds, they were just open to change. If anything, he thought Hermione should be thanked, because everything he had talked about was based on their conversation yesterday.

“Really, guys...” Drawing Fred and George out of their conversation, Harry tried to explain, “It’s not me who did anything. Hermione and I had a conversation, I saw things in a new light, and shared the perspective with you guys. You guys are just seeing this new perspective too, you don’t need to thank me.” Harry deflected. He was already stressed from the earlier attention Fred’s rant gained and people were still coming back to the common room so it was busier than normal. He quickly got up off the couch arm, the feeling of needing to escape steadily climbing as silence prevailed. He grabbed his bag and made a beeline for the exit, leaving his stunned friends gathered in the commotion of a busy common room.

Harry didn’t know where to go, just that he had to leave. Wandering the seventh floor corridors wasn’t enough of a distraction, he was itching to do something productive. Usually, when the urge would strike, he’d do school work, but as it was only the first week, there wasn’t much left to do. Alternatively, he’d seek out Filch and help him with whatever he was cleaning. 

He had discovered last year, after a prank gone wrong, how frustrating it was to have to clean a magic castle, and offered to help Filch clean. At first, he refused help, but as the prank war continued he reluctantly allowed Harry to help. After catching Harry petting Mrs. Norris, Filch had formed a tentative truce and occasionally allowed Harry to help him. Harry quickly realized that Filch didn’t seem to hate kids, like everyone assumed, just the chaos of a magical school, while he himself was not magical. Harry and Filch had a cautious friendship; Harry was quiet and didn’t mind helping, Filch was lonely and appreciative of the respect. 

So, when Harry was stressed he’d seek out Filch, and right now he was nowhere to be found. After another ten minutes of wandering and passing people heading down to dinner, Harry found he wasn’t hungry. Abandoning his search for Filch, he decided to head to Flitwick’s instead. Taking a moment to regain his bearings, he started making his way towards Professor Flitwick’s classroom. A short trek through the castle later, Harry found himself pausing before eventually working up enough gumption to knock on the door.

“Come in.” Flitwick echoed from behind the door. Harry pushed the door open and stepped into the room a bit, expecting the classroom to be empty, but instead saw Snape pouring a cup of tea for Flitwick from a floral teapot. The small man smiled up at Harry and ignored the pressing looks from the other professor as he set the teapot down.

“Ah, Harry, how can I be of assistance to you?” Harry stood frozen. Eyeing Snape who had one eyebrow quirked, he looked at Flitwick, who was patiently waiting for a response. He hesitated for a moment, but eventually began speaking,

“Sorry, professors. I didn’t realize you were busy, I didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll- uh- just be going.” Harry gestured to the door he just came through, almost turning on his heel to walk right out, but Flitwick spoke again.

“Nonsense, Harry. You’re here now, do ignore Severus, we were just enjoying a spot of tea.” Harry glanced up at Professor Snape, who looked like he wished to be anywhere else but here. Harry awkwardly smiled at the scene before him and turned back to Professor Flitwick, oblivious to the perplexing look Snape wore.

“Sir, I was just stressed out…” he trailed off, not completing his thought, before continuing speaking, “一and last year you let me help around your class a bit. You didn’t seem to mind, but uh- yeah- anyways, I truly am sorry for disrupting your conversation with Professor Snape. I can go. Thank you, though.” Harry didn’t look up at the soft look his small professor was giving and the man sighed,

“Okay, if you wish to go you may. I appreciate your offer for help, if the need shall arise again, do please feel free to come by another time.” Flitwick gave a small smile and Harry swallowed and nodded back.

“Thank you professor. Sorry again for disrupting your afternoon, sirs.” Not even sparing a second glance, Harry robotically turned and walked right out the door.

~~~~ 一 ~~~~

After Harry abruptly left, Snape looked at the door, then back at Flitwick, and back at the door. “What一in Merlin’s name一was that?” Flitwick settled back into his chair and grabbed the sugar, adding some to his tea, before meeting his colleague’s questioning stare. 

“On a few occasions, last year, I had found Mr. Potter helping Argus Filch with his cleaning duties. I have no clue what possessed him to willingly help, but I told him that if he ever needed a quiet place to go, he could come to me and I could find him something to do or he could just do his work. Afterwards, probably once a month, he would show up to offer to help or just work quietly. As you well know, the Gryffindor common room isn't the calmest of atmospheres at times, so I offered him a sanctuary. He rarely ever talks but he seems to know I’m here, if he needs it.” 

Snape was mystified. He would have thought that Potter thrived off of the rowdyness of the common room, but he frequently sought solace, with Filch nonetheless? The two men sat in silence, lost in thought over the same boy, who was currently wandering around a too big castle with too big thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is hecka long but I loved it. Bonus content from our Beta friend Toast who is wondering if, "befriending portraits the wizard equivalent of online friends?". As someone who's entire uni life is online from the comfort of my own room, sounds about right lol. 
> 
> Hope everyone is well. This chapter is a beast but I throughly enjoyed it. Harry's got some mental health stuff we start to delve into alongside his terrible self esteem. With a cameo from some domestic prof interaction because of course Flitwick and Snape have weekly tea together. 
> 
> I also hope the perspective change was okay at the end cause sometimes it's just took good of an opportunity to write from someone else's perspective. I try to stay strictly with Harry tho so it won't be a common occurrence I don't think. Let me know your thoughts. 
> 
> As always feel free to comment about stuff you like and stuff you don't. If anything is confusing/not realistic please let me know and I'll do my best to explain or fix it. I really love hearing your opinions!
> 
> Take care folks, hope all is well with everyone :)


	9. Just Keep Swimming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finds comfort in the lake and in one of his new friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends. Just a side note before our comments from our lovely Betas. In this chapter there's mention of abuse and trauma, nothing super specific but wanted to let y'all know this is a little bit of a more serious chapter. Harry also uses some big kid language cause he's been through a lot.
> 
> On a lighter note, my Betas and I edited together for this chapter on a video call so lots of laughs were had. 
> 
> It's become a running joke about the lack of age appropriate homoeroticism (not a focus of this fic obviously, but a big focus for a lot of HP fanfic) that they teasingly comment on it a lot. Just some background for one of Toast's final comment on the chapter, "I will ignore the lack of homoerotisism because I like the Slytherin bonding and trauma sharing" 
> 
> Nothing too funny as it is a heavier chapter but I hope everyone enjoys. :)

After the awkward run-in with Flitwick and Snape, Harry was at a loss. He still couldn’t find Filch, so that was out of the question, but he needed to do something一feel something. The castle felt too big at the moment, and he found himself missing the security his cupboard at the Dursley’s provided. While the experience of being locked in was not something to be desired, Harry had grown accustomed to his cupboard being the only place that provided solace while living with his relatives. It was the only space that was his, and he felt comforted by the familiarity of his room and its controlled variables. There was only one door where danger came from and Harry grew to know when such danger would burst into his safe space. 

As Harry walked around the giant castle, he yearned for that safe, small feeling he had when in his cupboard. He stopped pacing around the fourth floor and looked out one of the many windows that lined the west wall. The crisp chill had been waning all day, leaving a coolness that normally accompanies September afternoons. Checking the time, it was already half an hour into the dinner hours, thus explaining the lack of students on the grounds. Harry didn’t feel hungry and was definitely not in the mood to face the loud Great Hall. Still surveying the scene outside, an idea flickered in his mind as he watched the dock in Black Lake gently bob in the water; he could go swimming. It was still warm enough to not get hypothermia but cold enough to help him feel something.

Now with a destination in mind, Harry made his way diligently through the castle, down to the grounds. 

Dudley had taken swimming lessons that Harry had watched from the sidelines when he was still too young to stay home alone. Following the lessons Dudley often begged to stay for the free swim and Harry would be allowed to go into the water then, oftentimes trying to practice the different skills that Dudley had learnt that day while the older boy went around splashing younger kids. He wasn’t a particularly strong swimmer, he never had the stamina to swim laps, but he had enjoyed trying to figure out the strokes. The childhood excitement of having the opportunity to go swimming was now back in full force. 

Harry made his way around the lake until it came close to the castle in a secluded bay near an alcove in the brickwork that people rarely visited because there wasn’t much else around. Sitting on the sandy beach, leaning against the stone work of the old castle, Harry waited. Listening to see if anyone else might show up. Once concluding that either everyone was at dinner, or not going to show up at the obscure place on the grounds, he stripped out of his shirt, sweater, and trousers. Left in only his pants, held up with a shoelace, he ran into the water until he tripped forward, submerging his whole body.

The chill was immediate, but rather than stunning, it was refreshing. Harry felt like he was coming up for fresh air after being underwater both mentally and physically. All his thoughts stopped. His sole focus now on swimming and staying afloat. He tread water for a moment before rolling onto his back, laying there and floating. Every-so-often he would exhale, sinking almost completely underwater, before gasping for air and floating back up. 

Eventually, he turned back over and tried to remember some of the different strokes. Some were easier than others, but all were exhausting. Breathless, he floated on his back, drifting until he felt nothing; a different kind of empty than before. Harry felt present in the moment, like nothing mattered except that one moment in time. There were no thoughts of mean teachers, hateful relatives, or evil dark lords; just the thought of staying afloat. 

The sun had been steadily sinking behind the horizon during his expedition in the water. Finally getting out of the water, he cast a few drying and warming charms that could have been stronger if he wasn’t so drained from swimming. Once redressed, he settled along the side of the castle where there were a few sandy patches of grass to watch the sunset over the forbidden forest. A long shadow slowly emerged from the forest and he directed his attention, waiting for the owner to show themselves. 

The fading light illuminated the face of Pansy Parkinson, carrying a worn grey and green blanket. Quietly acknowledging her, Harry turned his attention back to the coloured sky above the treeline; a silent invite for her to sit with him. Pansy took the opportunity and set the blanket on the ground. Settling on the leftmost side, she wordlessly offered the other for Harry to move onto.

“It’ll get cold soon, the ground doesn’t provide much insulation, especially since you were just in the lake.” She spoke quietly, looking off in the same direction as him. Harry froze waiting for the final blow. When the silence instead prevaled, Harry asked,

“How’d you know?”

“Your hair’s wet.” She paused, “but I also saw you.” 

Harry tensed. He had thought everyone was inside, so he didn’t wear a shirt. He was completely vulnerable, his slightly concave stomach, prominent ribs, and yellowing bruises out on display. She saw it all. Harry dropped his head to his knees in shame. The Hogwarts Rumor Mill was notoriously fast. If he was lucky he’d have until breakfast tomorrow before his secrets were exposed. Pansy’s voice startled him out of his spiral,

“Your secret’s safe with me.” Harry’s breath caught in his throat while she continued, “Slytherin’s stick together...” 

Harry turned towards her, taking in her appearance for the first time. Her green tie was loosened, top button unbuttoned, and grey cardigan wrapped tightly around herself. He thought about her words and tried to comprehend the meaning behind them.

“But- but I’m not一” Harry stuttered, but she cut him off,

“There’s a reason we stick together in the first place. Many of the Old Families have a similar, archaic ideology of forms of punishment...” Harry understood where she was going now, but stayed silent. After a moment Pansy extended her hand out, letting it rest on the ground palm up. Harry looked for a moment, noticing the puckering of old burn scars, before sliding his hand into hers. They sat like that for a while, watching the colours molt around in the sky, sharing a mutual understanding as time continued to pass. 

Eventually, Harry broke the silence, whispering,

“Why were you in the forest?” Afraid he shouldn't have asked, he held his breath. Fortunately she seemed more curious than anything,

“How’d you know that?” Pansy questioned.

“Your shadow. It was long and the sun’s setting over the forest.” Harry responded.

“Oh. I was visiting the thestrals,” She answered.

“The thestrals?” 

“They’re the horses that pull the carriages at the beginning of term. Do you know their significance?” 

“I’ve seen them, but I don’t know their meaning.”

“Only people who’ve seen death can see them.” Pansy explained, “The majority of the school just believes that magic pulls the carriages, but we can see them.” She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.

“I’ve seen a lot of death, everyone knows that… But who was it for you?” The sun was long gone behind the trees and the ambient light was fading fast, enveloping them in a comfortable dusk. The dark made them courageous, and Pansy tentatively started to respond,

“My older brother…” She trailed off, a single tear threatened to fall down her cheek.

“It’s okay to be sad, to mourn. You’re safe here. I miss my parents and I barely remember them… I hate that I can’t remember.” He confessed. Pansy sniffled and Harry scooched over next to her. Letting go of her hand, he heard her breath hitch and he lifted his arm, giving her a chance to accept or deny the comfort he was offering. Harry felt her hesitate for a moment, but then move closer under his arm. The moment she was settled, Harry felt her struggling against breaking down.

“We were so young.” She whispered into the darkness. He squeezed her shoulder and she continued. “We were playing in the water, at one of the properties my family owns. One minute he was there, and then the next... he-he was一gone.” Harry kept his hold on her shoulder as she kept talking. “Oh Merlin, he’s gone一forever一gone. I knew that but...but...”

“It seems more real now, after you talk to people about it.” He finished when she didn’t. “I know the feeling. But you are here, now, and are okay. Even if they’re not.” He rubbed her shoulder and arm as she tried to catch her breath. She took a few more moments, where Harry just offered silent comfort, while she evened out her breathing and composed herself.

“I’m sor一” Harry cut her off before she could say anything else.

“No, you have nothing to be sorry for. Never be sorry for grieving.” He squeezed her again before extracting his arm to face her instead. Seeing her blotchy face and tear tracks he muttered, “don’t ever be sorry about something like that.” He gave a slight nod and she nodded back in understanding. He opened both arms slightly, offering her a hug, but she just shook her head and sat back against the wall and extended her hand instead. The sunlight was long gone and just the lights from inside the castle illuminated their conversation. Harry was comfortable sitting in silence but Pansy suddenly tensed before speaking up,

“You’re not一” He squeezed her hand.

“Gryffindors keep their secrets to the end.” He responded.

“But一” He cut her off again to explain,

“You have to be pretty fucking brave to face every day after witnessing something like that.” In his peripheral vision he saw her nodding to herself. 

“Yeah. You were right you know, earlier. We really aren't that different...” She trailed off.

“No we’re not.” Harry responded, barely audible. After a moment, Harry let go of her hand and climbed to his feet before re-extending his hand to help Pansy get up. Once they were both standing, he bent down, picked up the blanket and shaked it out before wrapping her in it. Meeting her eyes, he smiled. 

“Thank you.” He nodded, turning towards the side entrance of the castle he began walking. A few moments later Pansy called out,

“Harry!” He turned around to face her.

“Yeah?” His soft voice carried the short distance he had put between them.

“You can always be Just Harry with me.” She smiled and Harry nodded in appreciation. Turning back, he disappeared around the castle, into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends,
> 
> Little late on the upload, but it's here nonetheless. Both myself and my Betas celebrate Christmas so little bit of an excuse there.... 
> 
> I really like this chapter because oftentimes in HP fanfic, Harry has to struggle alone because his situation is so unique, but here he's able to share his trauma to a certain degree with someone who has experienced something similar. He may think he's alone but is he...? 
> 
> Like always, if there's and questions and concerns hit me up in the comments, especially with this chapter there's bigger topics covered and I'd like to portray it properly so if there's any problems please let me know. :)
> 
> Hope everyone is doing okay, we're back in lockdown again but I never really left the house anyways. Stay safe and take care friends.


	10. Exhausted Conversations and Good Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry gossips/barters with his portrait friends only to be drawn into more conversation with his human friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy friends, Happy New Year. Fun short chapter to kick off the new year! Lot's of funny comments from our Beta's this time around. 
> 
> Toast edited this chapter last night... can you tell?  
> "alright folks there's two hours left of 2020 and if all my problems do not go away at the turn of the hour tonight i will throw a fucking riot"
> 
> "toast? i dont even know anymore. i see toast everywhere. is this what a stroke is supposed to smell like?"

Harry entered the common room ten minutes later, after a brief conversation with Elizabeth, pleading for her not to tell McGonagall about him breaking curfew. She readily agreed in exchange for some portrait gossip from the fifth floor and Harry mentioned the rumor that Crazy Coot Barnabys had been visiting Nutty Nephritis very frequently. Elizabeth was ecstatic and promised to keep his breaking curfew a secret because the portraits had a bet going on for when the two would finally do something. 

The common room was completely empty, save for two people sitting, leaning against the right side of the hearth, looking into the dying fire. At the noise behind them, both the figures simultaneously turned to face Harry.

“Harry! You’re back, please come sit.” Hermione dropped her knitting into her lap. She scooted over revealing George at her side, also moving to make space for him. Harry slowly made his way across the room, nodding to his two friends.

“Hey Hermione, George.” He muttered tiredly. Dropping his bag, Harry sat between the two, wishing he could just go to bed. He figured he’d have to account for his whereabouts since the afternoon, having been MIA ever since he left the common room. George reached forward, grabbing a plate that Harry didn’t notice, and set in on the corner of the coffee table to their left.

“Here mate. We saved you some dinner, just a few light things.” George lifted the stasis spell, revealing a small plate of steamed vegetables and a couple buns on the side. Harry moved over to eat at the coffee table while his friends moved to the opposite side. He offered his friends each a bun, claiming that he wouldn’t be able to eat them all anyways, and the small group ate in amicable silence for a while until Harry spoke up,

“You didn’t have to wait up. I know it’s late…” He trailed off.

“We know we didn’t have to, we wanted to.” Hermione lifted her gaze from her resumed knitting, catching his eyes as she smiled. Harry gave a weak smile back. He knew they were there because they cared and were worried, but felt guilty for making them wait up and fret over him. Harry sighed.

“Sometimes when it all gets to be a bit much一” He gestured to the common room “一I just need to be alone and do something to reset. I didn’t mean to be gone for so long.” He looked at George, waiting for the jokes or ridicule, but they never came. Instead the older boy nodded in agreement,

“I understand. I feel like that sometimes, too. Doesn’t happen often cause I’m used to living in a busy house, but I normally work on personal research stuff in the library for a bit if I need a break.” George admitted.

“Yeah Harry, you don’t have to feel ashamed, everyone has their limits. God knows I understand it can all be a bit much, sometimes I miss the simplicity of being at home rather than living at school. Magic can be overwhelming sometimes.” Harry slumped back against an armchair, the tension leaving his shoulders. His friends understood. He mutely nodded and Hermione continued on, 

“All of us wanted to make sure you were okay. We got nervous when you hadn’t come back after dinner. George and I offered to wait up so you wouldn’t be overwhelmed, but the others wanted to wait, too.” Hermione was smiling softly and Harry was appreciative of his friends’ forethought. He was just tired and, as much as he liked his friends, it would have been a lot if they had all waited. Hermione continued, breaking Harry from his thoughts,

“We should think of a way that you can let us know you’re safe, but still be given the space you need.” Harry’s thoughts instantly turned to the book of spells in his bag,

“I think I might have a book we can check out for some sorta spell, but I’m really tired right now. Do you think we can work on it tomorrow?” Harry looked up across the table with pleading eyes. His limbs were dead weight after swimming and he had a lot to think about after his conversation with Pansy. 

“Yeah mate, good idea. How about tomorrow after breakfast in the library?” George got up, walking around the coffee table and offered a hand to Harry. Gratefully taking it, Harry stood up and regained his balance, 

“Thank you.” He whispered. “For staying up and waiting, bringing me food. It’s nice to feel cared for.” He looked away from his friends feeling drained. He was pulled out of his head when Hermione stood in front of him, gently holding his upper arms,

“Of course, Harry, we’ll always care. You have to care, too, okay?” He gave a slight nod and she let go. They parted at the stairs. Waving to George, Harry opened the door to his dorm and slid into bed fully clothed, only stopping to slip out of his ratty trainers. Exhausted, Harry fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep for the first time since he could remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends, welcome to the new year I suppose. The fic is still going strong and I'd like to keep it that way, so somewhat a resolution/goal for the new year :). 
> 
> I'm really enjoying editing and writing this so I hope y'all are enjoying reading it as well. I'm using personal experience and what I'd assume would be a Harry's responses to the stressors in his life as guidelines for how I'm writing Harry. I'm a psych major so this stuff is really interesting to me but if I'm writing something wrong or insensitive please let me know because I do address a lot of mental heath problems and I understand everyone is different. Thanks so much for your support and I hope everyone is doing well. I still have a bit left on break before I go back so here's hoping I can get some more stuff posted and edited :).
> 
> Side note: I have a separate doc that has a bunch of content to make sure I'm keeping things consistent (ie. there's a calendar showing when each chapter is occurring, glossary for all my made up words, something map esk so I know what thing is supposed to face where) If this stuff sounds interesting and you'd like to see some of the "behind the scenes" stuff let me know in the comments :)
> 
> Thanks friends for all the support and take care.


	11. Inventions and Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big discussion regarding juice and the differences between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. Brainstorm session in the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! Big chapter with lots to talk about. Editing this was really funny cause purebloods are a bit oblivious and our betas keep poking fun at it. 
> 
> First note from the betas, I was saying that Harry was in socked feet but I wrote it as sock feet and Toast and Espresso swooped in,  
> "socked feet?" -Toast  
> "nah, my man Harry's got no skin on his feet, only cotton" -Espresso
> 
> There was also a lot of discussion/shit posting about the Orange Juice...
> 
> "ok i get that the wizarding world is kind of a cult stuck in the dark ages but come on neville. Wizards are idiots." -Toast  
> "Agreed, it makes me feel much better about my Uni marks" -Espresso

Despite his dreamless sleep, Harry still couldn’t sleep in. After too many early mornings at the Dursleys, it was ingrained to be up at the crack of dawn. He changed into clean clothes, padding down in socked feet to the common room. He grabbed one of the maroon afghans and cocooned himself in his usual window seat. He rummaged around in his bag by his side, grabbing his notebook and spell book he’d been reading. There was a section dedicated to communication that Harry had yet to read, although it didn’t seem very big.

If muggles could make phones, there’s bound to be a way to communicate other than through the floo. It didn’t necessarily have to be through words either, so as long as the other person understood, signals or actions could work. The whole point was just so that the sender would know that the receiver was okay. 

While making notes and placing sticky notes with ideas in the book, he completely missed Hermione entering the common room. It was only once the girl's hair came into his peripheral vision that he quickly drew his knees in, making room for his friend, but she denied the invitation with a small shake of her head.

“What are these?” She gestured to the stack of loose square pieces of parchment in his lap. Brightening, Harry turned the book around to show the different shapes of labeled parchment in the book,

“You know, after I had my epiphany about cooking, it got me thinking about other useful things that we have in the muggle world that we don’t in the wizarding world. One thing being sticky notes! You can’t write in books, but it’s annoying to copy everything out, so I made my own sticky notes with custom cut parchment and a simple sticking charm.” Hermione reached over and snatched the book from his grip flipping through the pages he’s already read, looking at all the different shaped sticky notes. 

“Harry.” she breathed, looking up with stars in her eyes, “This is bloody brilliant! What other things could we invent!” she squealed and Harry nestled into the blanket, his blushing face blending into the maroon blanket.

“What’s brilliant?” Fred asked as he and George made their way over from the staircase.  
“ I’ll show you after breakfast. Let’s go, I’m hungry.” Harry deflected. Snatching up his book from Hermione, who was still smitten with the idea, he shoved his things into his bag, and replaced the blanket back onto the couch. Shrugging, the twins agreed and followed Harry out towards the Great Hall.

Later, during breakfast, Harry swirled a goblet of pumpkin juice and mused to the group,

“Why do they only have pumpkin juice? There’s a bunch of other types of juices.”

“I guess it’s just a wizard thing, I suppose.” Neville answered.

“Really? Have you ever had orange juice? Or apple juice?” Neville cocked his head at the question, but then shook it,

“Orange juice? Like from the fruit? I’ve had apple cider at Yule, but never orange juice.” Harry facepalmed and all the purebloods in the group looked at him in confusion. Harry ignored them and turned to Hermione,

“How? How do wizards do it? They’re missing out on so much. Sure, having magic is great and all but there’s so many things just missing!” Harry looked at Neville, “You’ve never even heard of orange juice?” Harry said, dead serious, and Neville just sheepishly shook his head. Harry rested his forehead on the table, sighing after his mini rant. Hermione spoke up,

“You know, I never really thought of it like that. I was so excited to explore this new world and just to have magic that I never realized what I was missing back home.” Harry mutely shook his head against the table. The Weasley’s and Neville just stared mystified at the two,

“You’re saying that the muggle world is better than the wizarding one?” George tried to clarify. Harry whipped his head up, denying the comment,

“No! I’m just saying they have a lot of great things that the wizarding world immediately discredits because they’re muggle based. Like what’s the problem with different juices?!” Hermione snickered at the baffled purebloods who looked even more confused.

“Come on, let’s go to the library and I can explain it more.” Harry stood up, subtly slipping an apple into his bag, and beckoned his friends to follow. The gaggle of Gryffindors trailed him all the way to the library. Harry struggled to keep the smile off his face as Neville quietly asked Fred if he knew if there were other citrus juices since orange juice was apparently a thing.

Arriving at the library’s entrance, Harry asked Madam Pince if there was a set of muggle encyclopedias. After seeing Harry’s company, the librarian gave Harry a knowing look as she pointed towards a row in the far right of the room. Harry nodded in thanks and led the group down the row. 

It was a short walk until he found what they were looking for and plopped onto the ground in front of the book shelf. His confused friends followed suit. Once settled, Harry spoke up,

“Clearly, you two haven’t taken muggle studies because一” Harry paused mid-thought, “Well actually, I have no idea what the curriculum looks like. I don’t know if they cover supposed muggle foods.” Harry shook his head as if to clear it and changed the subject, “Anyways, there’s a bunch of things that the muggle world has that the wizarding one doesn’t.” He dug around in his bag, removing his copy of 101 Random But Useful Charms from his bag. He opened it to a random page that was layered with parchment and showed the group. Neville was quick to react, eyes snapping up to meet Harry’s after they glanced at the page,

“Harry! You can’t deface a book like that if you don’t own it!” Neville glanced back the way they came, seemingly nervous that the librarian would appear out of thin air and reprimand his friend, but Hermione had fire in her eyes again.

“Don’t worry Neville, these are the magical equivalent of what are called sticky notes in the muggle world. They’re pieces of paper that have glue on part of the back and can be used to take notes and stick them to things without wrecking it.” Neville’s eyes grew wide, the twins’ following suit.

“Do tell us more about the muggle world Harrykins, sounds like we picked the wrong elective after all.” Fred said, leaning closer to Neville, who was looking at the book. George had plucked a piece off the page and was examining it.

“This is ingenious. I presume this is what Hermione was talking about earlier this morning?” The two nodded and George looked back at the piece of parchment in his hands, “And the Muggles just have this stuff easily accessible?”

“Yeah, they have whole shops dedicated to stationary. I was going to bring some of my coloured pens and highlighters but the first year list had quills and inkwells on it so I just followed the list and left them on my desk at home.” Hermione responded and Harry smirked to himself. Hermione shot him a quick look but he changed the subject.

“I was thinking about our communication problem一” He glanced at George who nodded, and then to Hermione, who was now deep in thought “一there has to be a way to communicate with each other when we’re not together. We have telephones and mobile phones in the muggle world. They’re like these, um devices, I guess, that you can make a call on. Kinda like a floo call, but you don’t need a fireplace.” Harry abruptly stood up, looking at the encyclopedias on the shelf that was behind him. He scanned the set until he grabbed the M volume, quickly flipping through for the mobile phone entry. Handing the book over to the boys, Harry settled back down while they all hunched over the book. 

George looked up first, but only to quickly dig around his own bag for a piece of parchment and a quill before going back to finishing reading. Harry and Hermione sat in silence, trying to keep straight faces as they purebloods tried to wrap their heads around the tech they so easily understood. Once it was evident they all had read the entry George spoke up,

“Well that’s brilliant and bloody convient. Obviously we can’t just get mobile phones and use them because they wouldn’t work here, muggle tech doesn’t mix well with magic. The concept for communication is a good place to start, though.” Harry grabbed his book that was moved off to the side,

“My book has a section on communication. Basically we want something that lets the other person know that they are okay. It would be harder to try and make it work with words so I was thinking we could each choose an object to have activate, that lets us know that whoever we’re reaching out to is okay. Like something that heats up, or lights up.” Harry fished out his own notebook as the group started to brainstorm ideas and spells or charms they could use. 

Two hours later, they were still brainstorming when Hermione made a suggestion. 

“How about beads on a bracelet? Everyone gets a bracelet and a designated bead and somehow they're all connected. I don’t know how the communication method would work though, but it’d be easy to make the bracelet so that solves the earlier problem.” Harry drew up another sketch beside the other ideas of a weaved bracelet with four beads spaced out and another bead on the opposite side. He passed around the sketch and Hermione continued to explain,

“One for each of us and then the separate one represents the wearer. We can all pick a colour to represent ourselves.” 

“What are all of your favourite colours?” Harry asked as he reached into his bag to retrieve a beaten up cloth pencil case. Revealing old pencil crayons that had seen better days to the group, Hermione looked at him dumbfounded.

“You brought pencil crayons, I knew I should have brought my pens! Bugger, I’ll mail my parents to send them for Christmas.” Hermione made a note to herself on her own page while Fred, George, and Neville were busy admiring and testing the coloured pencils on a scrap bit of parchment.

“Wow, these are so cool! They’re so vibrant and clean, normally to colour stuff you need ink or paint, but this is just in a stick. What did you say they were called again, coloured pen souls?” Fred mused, picking up Harry’s sketch and coloured in a bead with the purple pencil crayon he’d been testing. With a flourish he signed his name over top of the bead he claimed. George grabbed the sketch next, using a yellow one instead, he coloured in the bead next to Fred’s while Hermione and Neville continued to look through the colours. Hermione settled on a soft lavender that she claimed was the same colour as her room back home, and Neville finally chose a turquoise. Harry chose a dark forest green, filling in the last bead on the page.

While everyone was still settling on colours, Hermione and George were working on transfiguring the actual beads from discarded parchment into the right colours. 

“That solves the vessel problem, but how are we going to actually communicate?” Neville asked. 

“I don’t know yet, there’s bound to be a spell or charm about making something buzz or warm up. I think the connection will be the harder part. I don’t know where to even start with that...” Harry responded. Neville smiled at his friend and stood up, stretching before he grabbed his bag and cast tempus. They had worked all morning before they finally settled on working on the bracelet idea. There was still half an hour until the Great Hall opened for lunch, but Harry was still full from breakfast. The group was slowly disbanding from the research session as Neville spoke up,

“I’m going to head out. Some friends are going to the greenhouses to work on homework, talk later?” The group nodded and all waved goodbye to their friend as they finished packing up. Presenting Harry with a palm full of beads, Hermione spoke up,

“We’ll keep thinking of different spells we can use on the beads, but for now I think you should keep them. We can ask Hagrid for some leather, or hemp to braid to make the bracelet part. For now though, I think it’s best you keep them, so they don’t get lost.” Harry nodded and put them in the second zipper pouch in the pencil case before Hermione continued, “George and I are going to Ravenclaw tower for a study session, see you at lunch?” She pined a stare on him, but he adamantly averted his gaze and mumbled something along the lines of ‘yeah maybe, I don’t know’. Clearly Hermione was not impressed because she followed up with,

“Harry you need to eat, even if it’s not a lot.” She bent down so she was within sight and Harry looked up. “Come to lunch and have a few bites, it’s better than nothing... Please?” She held his gaze until he let out a begrudging ‘fine’. George and her bid farewell soon after and left Fred and Harry together once again.

“Are you truly not hungry Harry? It’s been hours since breakfast and George said that you made them share the food we brought up for you last night.” Fred questioned, tentatively adding, “And you don’t eat a lot at meals to begin with...” His voice thick with concern. Harry was quickly becoming uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation and tried to diffuse the situation,

“I don’t need to eat a lot, it’s fine.” Changing the conversation, Harry reopened his spell book and looked up, “Think you could help me with a few of these, please?” Fred hesitated. Harry could tell he wanted to ask more, but evidently decided not to when he nodded his head. Moving beside Harry, he leaned against the bookshelf and they worked their way through the six or so spells Harry was having trouble with.

An hour later, at the end of their tutoring session, Harry’s bag had some new wizarding space and his tempus was new and improved, giving him more information than just the time.

“This is a really cool book, there’s a lot of useful spells.” Fred commented. 

“Yeah, I found it here in one of the misc sections, it’s been super useful, and really interesting.” Harry packed everything up as Fred stood waiting patiently. Together, they emerged from the stacks and Harry waved to Madam Pince, who was spelling books back into their place along the history section. As they emerged from the library doors into the corridor, Fred turned right and Harry started turning left, away from the Great Hall. Fred stopped in his tracks before Harry could correct himself and the older boy looked at his friend with sad eyes,

“You’re not going to lunch, are you?” Fred sounded disappointed, but Harry pushed that thought to the back of his mind.

“I have some things I need to do. I have an apple with me, though, I'll eat that if you want.” He added the last part in hope of placating Fred, but it only seemed to make him more frustrated.

“You shouldn’t eat because your friends want you to! You should eat because you need food to stay alive!” Fred fumed, a sad look still prevalent. Harry turned away, he ate when he could, but they didn’t understand that he didn’t need to eat three times a day, he just couldn’t. Plus, there were always things that needed doing and meal times were wasted time if he couldn’t stomach a full meal anyways. Harry, annoyed that his friend didn’t understand, snapped back,

“I’m alive, aren't I?” 

He instantly regretted his comment. Fred took a step back in disbelief, a hurt expression taking over his normally nonchalant smirk, and Harry couldn’t bear to look at it much longer. “I have stuff to do, see you later.” Harry spun on his heel and practically bolted down the hall and around a corner, leaving Fred standing sad and alone in the middle of the corridor. 

Harry tried to stop the thoughts that were berating him once again. He had tried so hard to be a good friend. Although he didn’t have much practice pre-Hogwarts, even he knew yelling at them wasn’t the right thing. Food was just a touchy subject for him and he didn’t like talking about it with anyone. Fred had kept pushing and it stressed him out. Thoughts of Fred’s shattered opinion of him plagued Harry as he walked around the castle, wondering what Fred must think of him now. Drowning in self-loathing, Harry headed towards Flitwick’s classroom, hoping for a distraction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy Folks! Big chapter and I thoroughly enjoyed editing it, especially the random juice stuff, that was a last minute edition lol.   
> Still on break for the rest of the week but I'm trying to keep posting on the weekend. 
> 
> Harry's got some shit going on and food is a touchy subject for him. His friends care but they don't know how to talk about it without him getting really defensive, gotta love coping mechanisms...
> 
> I was talking with my friends about how there's a big disconnect between muggle borns and the internet, especially with the memes. Purebloods would be so confused if a muggle born went around saying "the mitochondria is the power house of the cell" or alternatively a muggle born telling a pureblood that the mitochondria is the power house of the wand??? Anyways, I found it hilarious. If I should add internet culture let me know. I've been focusing on things that muggles have that wizards don't that are more material (aka sticky notes, pencil crayons, OrAnGe JuIcE), but I can add internet culture too if y'all want :). 
> 
> Like always take care friends and hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if there's thing you want to see wizards react to. Neville thinks that Orange Juice is crazy, just wait until he realizes you can MIX different juices!


	12. New Cuts and Old Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry is in desperate need of a distraction from himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends, new chapter. Again this chapter deals and talks about some of the trauma Harry has suffered so I just wanted to add a trigger warning. Harry gets a cut on his hand and it bleeds a bit (not self inflicted) and there is some pretty self-deprecating thoughts on Harry's end adding a bit of back story of what he's suffered at the Dursleys (not graphic). Take care and trust that you know your limits :).
> 
> As for our beta appreciation, Toast questions what things are unique to the wizarding world, vs what is just adopted from the muggle world. At one point Harry uses some soap and they commented,
> 
> "what soap??? we must know!!" -Toast
> 
> "Dawn Dishsoap TM" -Me
> 
> "since wizards make thinks more convoluted then necessary, what is wizard dish soap?" -Toast
> 
> "If it's good enough for the duckies then it's good enough for the wizards" -Me

Harry forgot it was Sunday when he walked into Flitwick’s classroom and found it teeming with students playing chess. Even something as quiet as the chess club was overwhelming at the moment for Harry and he didn’t want to deal with the noise. Instead, he turned back towards the exit to leave, but was stopped by Flitwick himself.

“Harry, I didn’t know you played chess!” The professor greeted him, sounding surprised.

“Oh, um一I don’t. I一uh一forgot that it was Sunday.” His eyes darted around trying to calculate the extra variables in the active room.

“Ah, I see. I don’t have anything for you to do today. We could settle down in my office and play a game if you’d like?” Picking up on Harry’s frantic demeanour, the professor continued, “If you’d rather something a bit more focused I can see if Severus has some cauldrons that need cleaning. I know you don’t mind a little elbow grease.” Without even thinking about who it was he was helping, Harry nodded, desperate for a distraction. 

Flitwick gave a little nod in return and added, “I believe this weekend is the annual Slytherin House Student Government Meeting. A second floor conference room was signed out, so the dungeons will be quiet this afternoon.” Harry was grateful that the professor seemed to understand what he needed without him having to voice it.

Flitwick ushered him into his office and away from the crowd of students, sitting down to write a quick note on a piece of parchment. Harry stared at the spot on the desk where the note had sat, presumably banished to Snape’s desk. While waiting for a response, Harry thought about how the group had toyed with the idea of writing notes and banishing them to each other, but it required a wand and knowing where the other person was so they dismissed the idea. Harry noted how it seemed to be a common method of communication between the professors. A moment later, a new parchment popped into existence where the previous note had sat, undoubtedly from Snape. Flitwick read the note and smiled up at Harry, who had begun rewatching the door they had come through. 

“Severus said that there are first-year cauldrons that need to be washed. Should I send a reply saying you’re on your way? The offer still stands if you’d like to play a game of chess here, too.” The small man waited for a response.

Harry thought over his options. He could go to lunch and suffer through the noise and disappointed looks when he didn’t eat, stay with Flitwick and play chess 一 which would impede on the professor’s time when he kept him from his club, or he could be useful to someone by washing potion equipment in the empty dungeon. 

It wasn’t until Harry was halfway between Flitwick and the potions classroom that reality caught up to him. However, he desperately needed a distraction and couldn’t back down now that Snape was expecting him, no matter how much he dreaded seeing the professor. His argument with Fred and Aunt Petunia’s derogating rants had Harry knocking on Snape’s door without question upon arrival. His knuckles rapping against the mahogany echoed through the empty corridor before a baritone voice called out from behind the door.

“Enter.”

Harry turned the knob and stepped into the room. The dour professor was sitting at his desk at the front of the classroom working through a stack of essays. Harry didn’t think he seemed too annoyed by his presence, but he kept his guard up, as looks could be deceiving. Cutting right to the point, Harry said,

“Professor, it’s my understanding you have cauldrons that needed cleaning?” He needed the work, even if it involved working alongside Snape. And, Harry figured, it might allow for more house points to come his way in the future.

Snape looked up, a singular eyebrow raised, and gestured dismissively to the side counter where the used lab equipment and a dozen grimy cauldrons sat.

Harry nodded, muttering a quiet ‘thank you’ before making his way over to the counter and dropping his bag on a stool. Snape watched him for a little while longer, but once it was evident that he was in fact there to wash lab equipment, he went back to grading.

Harry ran the water as hot as possible, rinsing the cauldrons one by one then filling them with water and a bit of soap, letting them soak while Snape watched him. Once he was left to his own devices, he retrieved his own rag from his bag, and started with the accessories that were on the counter. Stirring rods, mortars and pestles, and potion knives were dropped into the soapy water to help mitigate some of the caked on grime.

Harry finished washing the stirring rods and had them set out on the drying rack, returning to the couple of mortar and pestles that made their way into the sink. As Harry focused on removing leftover ingredients and stains, he was able to block out his earlier thoughts. Petunia’s shrill voice was no longer screaming in his head and Fred’s misguided concern had been successfully pushed to the back of his mind, leaving Harry to focus on his own thoughts.

He understood that Petunia's words and ‘lessons’ were spiteful and wrong, and that no one deserved to be told they were a waste of space or a freak. However, Harry couldn’t deny that there was some truth behind her less harsh comments. The Dursley’s didn’t ask for Harry to be placed with them, so he understood where their resentment came from. An extra child is expensive, so it made sense that he got hand-me-downs, and Dudley, their own flesh and blood, was their favourite. Their other treatments were less justifiable, like why Dudley had two rooms when he had to sleep in the cupboard, or how he was the only one who cooked or cleaned.

Forgoing that train of thought, Harry reflected on Fred’s concern. He understood his eating habits were questionable, but he didn’t feel like trying to explain them, since it would just bring up more questions. Fred, and the rest of Harry’s friends, were great people and kind hearted, but in the end they were friends with a freak who was living on borrowed time. Aunt Petunia made that abundantly clear, that he should have died and didn’t deserve anyone’s sympathy. His bubbling anger drove him to attack the contents of the sink with more vigor in hopes of drowning out the thoughts.

Unfortunately, in his stupor, Harry’s hand grazed the blade of a potion knife laying at the bottom of the sink, making a slice across the back of his hand. Pulling his hand from the sudsy water, the cut leaked blood which dripped into the sink basin and stained the water a diluted pink. Harry continued doing the task at hand, seeing as he’s had similar injuries before that had never handicapped his ability to work. Besides, Harry reasoned, he healed fast from those sorts of things. Over the years at the Dursley’s he found that he healed progressively faster from some of the mishaps, although bruises seemed to heal at the same speed as others. At the time he tried to ignore it and be grateful his skinned knees from Dudley’s roughhousing healed faster than normal, but in hindsight it was probably his magical core working on protecting him. The stinging pain grounded him, pulling his thoughts from his unpleasant childhood to the task at hand. He grabbed some steel wool and prepared to tackle the dirty cauldrons.

The rest of the lunch hour passed in comfortable silence as both parties present were engrossed in their respective tasks. When Harry finished cleaning and drying the last cauldron, he drained the sink while wiping down the countertops before rinsing and wringing out his rag. With a quick drying charm, Harry was able to tuck away the rag back in his bag for future use. Taking a moment, Harry rinsed his cut hand under clean water, knowing he had hydrogen peroxide in his trunk in the tower to better clean it. Drying his hands on his pants, he stepped back to appreciate the clean space for a moment before turning to grab his bag and leave. 

“Thank you, sir.” Harry made it halfway across the room before Snape said anything.

“Let’s see your hand, Mr. Potter.” Harry froze and slowly turned to face the professor, saying,

“It’s fine, sir, nothing to worry about, professor.” Glancing back towards the open door Snape drew his wand and closed and locked the door. Harry flinched, the only exit he knew of was now in control of the potions master. While he didn’t think he would harm him, Snape was still a menacing and intimidating man. Harry paled and looked up at the professor,

“Sir一” his voice cracked and he swallowed a few times before continuing, “一may you please unlock the door, sir.” 

“Show me your hand.” The professor pressed and Harry didn’t understand why he was concerned, it wasn’t a very deep cut and would be fine in a couple days.

“Please.” He tried again looking from the door and back at the professor. Snape’s eyes narrowed for a moment before raising his wand and Harry took an instinctual step back. With a soft click the door was unlocked and Snape continued to watch him. He exhaled deeply and looked back at Snape.

“Your hand, Potter.” Snape’s insistence confused him,

“Why?” He held the wrinkly damp hand up showing the slightly weeping cut on the back. To him, it was just an over glorified paper cut.

“Come here.” Snape beckoned.

“Sir?” 

“I’m going to heal it, idiot child, now come here.” Snape stood up and dug through a desk drawer. Harry shook his head, 

“It’s not that bad, sir, really. It’ll be healed in a few days. I don’t need anything, I’ll be fine, sir.” Harry responded. His professor ignored his attempts to downplay the cut. Snape gestured to the stool that Harry had set his bag on earlier.

“Sit.” Not wanting to test the man, he sat, unable to see a way out of the confrontation. Snape came around his desk with a small tub in hand, “Hand,” Harry extended his hand. Snape made a clicking noise and raised his hand to wandlessly summon a disinfectant. Harry’s instincts kicked in at the raised hand and he raised his arm higher to protect his face. In doing so, he tumbled off the back of the stool onto the ground. Holding the disinfectant, Snape looked dismayed at the sight of Harry cowering on his classroom floor.

“Potter.” Snape said and Harry flinched. “Harry” He tired again. Not expecting his given name to be spoken, Harry was pulled out of his fight or flight instincts and he lowered his arm and blinked, focusing on the man standing in front of him. 

Snape was standing ramrod straight, clearly not trying to move in case he scared him again. He patiently waited for Harry to recollect himself, disinfectant in hand, concern spiralling in his eyes. After a moment Harry sat up, fidgeting as he spoke,

“Sorry, professor, won’t happen again.” Embarrassed by his reaction, he gave a self deprecating smile and clamoured to his feet, doing everything in his power to avoid Snape’s worried eyes. At Harry’s movement, the professor unlocked from his state as well. Clearing his throat, the man spoke up,

“Potter一 Harry. Did you think I was going to hit you?” He questioned seriously. Harry scoffed, trying to cover the tense atmosphere and responded,

“No, professor, I didn’t know what direction that一” he gestured to the disinfectant that Snape had summoned “一was going to come from, I didn’t want to get hit.” Snape held his gaze trying to suss out the truth, but didn’t press the matter more. Instead he held out his hand.

“Your hand, it still needs tending.” Reminded why they were there in the first place, Harry re-extended his own and Snape took it gingerly, analyzing the cut before uncorking the disinfectant. After a moment he added,

“Might sting.” Harry nodded, already expecting as much, but was not expecting Snape’s next question. “Why did you want the door unlocked?” Snape probed. He immediately poured a bit of the salve over the cut. Harry didn’t even bat an eye. Thinking it must have been a round-about way of trying to bring up the previous incidents, Harry deflected,

“I’m not in detention, I didn’t see a reason for you to forcibly keep me here had I wanted to leave.” He shrugged nonchalantly. 

“No, you are not.” Snape mused. They stayed silent throughout the rest of the process until they were done. Snape conjured a small container and started to scoop out more salve, speaking while doing so, “You will have to put this on for the next two days.” Harry immediately declined,

“Sir, I appreciate you giving me the salve now and all, but I don’t need extra. I know the deal, keep it clean and it’ll be healed by Tuesday.” Snape raised an eyebrow.

“This is a deep cut, Potter. It won't be fully closed for at least two days, and it may scar, even with the salve.” They held eye contact in a silent confrontation. Unfortunately it was Harry who caved in under the professor’s discerning eyes.

“It’ll be fine, professor. Scars don’t bother me anyways.” Harry slipped off the stool, grabbing his bag off the floor, and turned towards the door. 

“Thank you, professor, have a nice evening.” He walked out the door, leaving a perplexed Snape standing alone, still holding the extra container of salve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends,
> 
> Hope all is well with y'all. Just wanted to say a big thank you for everyone who comments and gave me kudos. It makes me really happy to see people actually enjoying my writing as much as I am. It's also nice to have something routine to work on amongst all the chaos... 
> 
> This chapter is a bit heavier talking about how Harry's home life has effected him, and Snape has some character development. I think for the most part there'll always be something that his trauma effects because it's a part of his entire character not just one aspect that can be put into a box so at any point if something seems to be wrong or inaccurate please let me know, I do care and will do my best to adjust.
> 
> As a side note I'm trying to think long term as to an overarching plot, originally I was going to write it in parallel to the CoS plot line. But I also understand that I've been posting weekly since like November and we're only through the first week of school... So I don't want to commit to an entire school year plot line if I don't think I'll finish it cause I do really want to see this to the end and am very emotionally attached to our kiddos. So anyways I have no plans on abandoning there's still a lot of stuff unbetaed and edited by me to post so don't worry, I'm just putting out feelers to see what y'all's thoughts are. I was thinking maybe start with just fall term and have it end at the end of break. That way I don't fizzle out... I also have a Marvel multi chapter fic swirling around that I won't start until I am secure in this one. Anyways let me know your thoughts :).
> 
> Like always, please take care.


	13. Friends Come in All Shapes and Sizes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry goes flying with a friend and winds down from his eventful weekend with Sunday dinner, complete with preteen gossip with old friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends, some fluff to end off Harry's weekend cause he needed to catch a break. I want to thank my regular commenters who inspired some of the plot behind this chapter. I originally had another plot heavy chapter written next but I decided that a) Harry needed a break, it was a long weekend and b) in real life during a normal weekend you'll do one or two things, maybe three if it's a busy one and Harry had done a lot this weekend, so I wrote in a filler that actually had a lot of build up of other things I want to touch on later. See if you can pick up on my foreshadowing ;-). 
> 
> As for our Betas, there's a part where Harry just wishes he could be an owl because that'd make life much easier and Toast commented,  
> "i wanna be a dog and harry wants to be an owl. i gotchu harry. let's avoid our responsibilities and feelings together" - Toast  
> "I support your dream 100%" -Espresso

Notwithstanding the incident with Snape, cleaning potion equipment served its purpose. Harry’s head felt clear for the first time since his argument with Fred. He wasn’t really that worried about Snape telling anyone, mostly because no one had done so in the past, but it also helped that he now knew Snape took tea with professor Flitwick. While it wasn’t much, he hoped that piece of information would protect him from further humiliation at the potions master’s hands. 

Now Harry was wandering around the lower levels of the dungeon, debating what to do next. Not wanting to waste the salve already on his hand, he dismissed the idea of going swimming again. It was also only midafternoon, so there was bound to be more onlookers than last time. 

While he deliberated, Harry fished the apple out of his bag. He was feeling a bit hungry, but by now lunch was already over and he wasn’t willing to venture to the kitchens again at the moment. Settling for the food he had on him, Harry took a bite, thoughts turning back to Fred. He knew running off was avoiding the problem, but he hadn’t had the mental energy to try and fight Fred on not going to lunch. Not wanting to be alone any longer, but also not wanting to have to explain himself to anyone, Harry made up his mind and headed towards the stairs.

It was a long climb, but thankfully an uninterrupted one. Upon entering the drafty room, Harry’s eyes darted up meeting the amber eyes of Hedwig. 

“There you are, girl!” Harry called out to the snowy owl, as she fluttered down from her perch in the owlery to one closer to the ground. Harry moved to sit on the ground, brushing the debris off to the side, and leaned against the stone wall. He called out again and Hedwig flew over and settled on his bent knees. She hooted and Harry laughed.

“You know, sometimes I can’t believe I’m actually here. That this is all real.” He smiled up at his owl and continued to pet her chest. Harry leaned his head against the wall behind him and sighed. 

He thought about all the times he had wished for a new life while living at the Dursleys, one where he actually mattered to people. He chuckled humourlessly to himself. 

“Well, I certainly matter now.” He whispered to Hedwig, who ruffled her feathers slightly at the sudden noise. Harry continued to stroke her feathers as if he hadn’t said anything.

“It must be nice to just be an owl.” Harry said to his companion. In response, she nipped his fingers and hooted indignantly. Harry held his hands up in surrender and laughed,

“Okay, okay. My bad, you’re right. You’re not just an owl. You’re very helpful, Hedwig, and I love you.” He flashed a smile and she turned her head as a silent invitation to continue petting her. Harry resumed smoothing out her feathers as he listened to her hoots of satisfaction.

“Can’t resist a good scratch can you, girl.” The hoots of the other owls filled the silence as Harry spent time with his feathered friend. Harry’s thoughts turned back to his other friends, sometimes it was just easier to be around animals where he wasn’t expected to uphold a conversation. Harry switched to petting her head when she started getting restless and fluttering her wings. 

“You can go out to fly, Hed, it’s all good.” Harry let out a long breath, “I wish I could go with you.” He froze. There was nothing really stopping him from grabbing his broom and flying with his familiar. “Hey, Hed, if you want to fly with me, meet me near the botanical garden. I’ll be out soon.” At Harry’s words Hedwig took off and circled the room before flying out one of the open windows. Harry clamoured to his feet and dusted off his pants, picking off one of Hediwg’s white feathers and pocketing it as he left. 

Harry rushed out of the owlery and down the flight of stairs that joined the tower to the seventh floor. Excited at the possibility of flying with Hedwig, Harry booked it down the hallways until he finally came face to face with Elizabeth. 

“Hello, I’m in a bit of a rush一” the portrait nodded “一whippersnapper.” At the utterance of the passcode the portrait opened wide revealing the warm common room. Hermione and Ron were in the sitting area. The former, working on knitting, and the latter, working on an essay. Harry threw a hand up in a wave and continued up to his dorm to retrieve his broom. Seamus and Dean were both in their room. Harry greeted them while he made his way to his bed,  
“Hey.” Harry grabbed his broom off of the rack in the back corner and turned to leave. His eye caught sight of Dean working on a still life sketch of Seamus struggling to understand their transfiguration text on the bed across from him. Harry smiled,

“That’s really good.” Dean muttered an embarrassed ‘thank you’ and Seamus looked up, confused. Harry changed the subject to avoid further embarrassment, “It helps if you read the entire chapter first before doing the worksheet, instead of doing it together.” Harry turned to his Irish roommate.

“It’d help if any of the laws actually made sense…” Seamus grumbled before turning his attention back to the text. Harry waved to them as he left, heading back to the common room.  
Back in the common room Hermione had set aside her knitting and was reading over Ron’s parchment. As Harry exited the stairwell, Hermione turned to Ron,

“Did you even read the chapter or just the summary at the end?” Ron blushed and crossed his arms,

“Matter of fact, I tried reading the chapter, but it was so boring that the summary seemed to suffice. I wasn’t going to try and decipher the chapter for an hour for only an 8 inch essay. I have better things to do with my time.” Ron didn’t meet Hermione’s eyes and she sighed. Harry smiled to himself about his friend's antics and slipped out of the common room.

At the botanical gardens, Harry spotted Hedwig swooping around, presumably hunting for a snack. Harry mounted his broom and took off. He caught up with Hedwig and they flew around together, Harry choosing to follow her wherever she pleased. They circled around the lake, over near the greenhouses, and up around the turrets of the castle. Hedwig seemed to have some understanding that Harry was following her and she kept flying around different places on the grounds, occasionally diving down to look for prey. Harry happily complied with the route and followed gleefully. 

Once Hedwig managed to catch a snack, she settled on a tree branch and Harry leaned against the trunk. He sighed, cheeks red from exertion. Flying was something he knew he loved as soon as he took his first flying class last year. There was something exhilarating about being in the sky. While he liked the concept of quidditch and being a part of a team, the practicality of it sometimes scared him. He didn’t like the risk, after the incidents last year he was on the fence of rejoining the team. The pressure to perform stressed him out. Seeker was one of the most important positions, there was a lot riding on him. On the other hand he didn’t want to leave the team without a seeker if they were expecting him to join the team again. He didn’t even try out last year they just appointed him, and while it was nice to be wanted and part of the team, he was also spending a lot more time on his classes. If this year would be anything like the last one, Wood would run the team ragged with practices, and Harry didn’t know if he could commit the time. 

Harry sighed. He’d think about it later, he decided. Besides, he reasoned, tryouts weren’t for another couple of weeks, so he had time to reach a decision. Hedwig hooted above him, signaling to Harry. He looked up and she took off back towards the castle. Harry checked his tempus and decided to go to dinner. The hall would have just started serving food, so hopefully it wouldn’t be too busy. 

On the walk back toward the castle, Harry debated whether to go all the way back upstairs to drop off his broom before going to eat. Ultimately, it would just take too long and too much effort to climb seven flights of stairs only to immediately go right back down, especially if he was trying to get to dinner sooner rather than later. Harry walked into the Great Hall and spotted two of his friends. Sitting down, both Hermione and Ron smiled. 

“Hey, mate. How was the essay?” Harry asked as he slid his broom under the bench and served himself a small helping of mashed potatoes. Ron handed over the gravy and shrugged,  
“About as good as a history essay can get. The material is dry and it’s not like Bins cares what we hand in.” Harry chuckled at the truth in the statement. 

“Yeah, you’re not wrong. The subject is interesting enough, but Bins just drones on, and on, and on.” Hermione gave them a sly look,

“I have insider information that Bins might get sacked. Some of the Claws apparently have been trying to get him replaced for years, but there seems to be some motion behind it this year.” Hermione looked smug and the two other boys just groaned.

“This is the worst! History was my bird course, I didn’t have to do anything. Now you’re telling me there might be a new professor? Who makes us work?!” Harry laughed at Ron’s exasperation through a mouthful of potatoes. 

Dinner passed smoothly. Harry had a helping of the roast and more potatoes, much to Hermione’s delight. The conversation was easy and light and they theorized who might be the new history professor if Bins did get replaced. As the others were close to clearing their plates, people were still arriving, filling up the few empty seats at the house tables. The hall was reaching its peak crowdedness and Harry was getting antsy to leave. Hermione seemed to sense this and left the conversation to Ron and Harry as she began finishing her meal at a quicker pace. Harry talked about flying with Hedwig and how he’d like to do it again. Ron was fascinated of Harry being able to fly with his owl, and voiced that Errol would probably drop dead if he was chased by someone on a broom. The two laughed and Hermione announced that she was done. Harry’s gaze flickered to a basket of dinner rolls at the end of the table.

He had eaten the apple he snagged from breakfast and he still had the stasis paper that the house elves had used to wrap the food from the kitchens. In a split-second decision, Harry snatched a few buns and hid them in his bag, planning on wrapping them in the paper later to keep them fresh.

As the trio walked out of the Great Hall, Ron held out his hand to Harry and he looked down. Ron had grabbed a few of the butter packets on the way out and was offering them to Harry. 

“Mum used to make us eat bread if we didn’t want to eat dinner. Butter makes it better.” Ron smiled at his friend and Harry slipped them into his bag with a quiet ‘thank you’ to Ron. “ I’ll snag some of the jam ones at breakfast, they’re even better than just butter.” Ron joked and Harry laughed. Hermione stayed silent through the exchange but Harry could tell she was glad for Ron. Ron, sensing a conversation change picked up their previous argument,

“Are you sure? I think Quirrel, even with You Know Who living in the back of his head, was a better professor than Lockheart!” Hermione blushed, stammering to try and find a rebuttal and Harry smiled at his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! This still counts as the weekend, right? Like I've said, I try and post on the weekend but school just started up for all of us last week and online uni is kinda a mess ngl. Anyways, I'm super committed and wrote this on Saturday morning before spending the entire day playing in the freshly fallen snow. Turns out one of Toast's prof is low key evil cause there's weekly calc (???? a math of some sort) assignments or quizzes that are only open for a certain amount of time over the weekend so we're testing out what schedule works best for us. 
> 
> Quick query to y'all, when you were in high school / are now, was there ever a time when you had to weigh the pros and cons of going back to your locker or just carrying around a bunch of crap for a while? Cause legit happened to me all the time and with Harry and his broom. Like you'd think there'd be a faster way to get to your room where all your stuff is rather than booking up 7+ flights of stairs if you're in the dungeon to get to a your tower. These kids must have legs for days, I'd get winded with three flights.
> 
> Anyways, hope everyone enjoyed the chapter, I'm kinda rethinking some of my earlier plot ideas and am changing some stuff so Ron might be around a bit more ;-) enjoy my friend who comments about Ron. Take care everyone and good luck if you're back in school. Be kind to your future selves, but also to your current selves. Take care.


	14. Goon Children and Baboon Professors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some overview on how classes are going and a petty fight between some of the silly kiddos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy friends, happy Sunday night!
> 
> I actually worked a lot on this fic this weekend. Probably to counteract all the reading I'm doing for uni, I had to write lol, idk but it was a good weekend :-). I now have some extra stuff waiting to be edited so I'm not speed editing on Friday so our Beta's have time to edit over the weekend. 
> 
> On to our regularly scheduled notes from the Beta's...  
> I try to write British slang, but I'm also not British so I'm just going off what I've read. We're all Canadian (I'm a dual citizen of the States tho) and we write "colour" with a 'u' but also so do Brits and Espresso seemed to forget for a hot second.
> 
> "Using the grammar of the Brits, I see" -Espresso  
> "and the canadians?" -Toast  
> "Ahhh, I guess I'm a closeted American..." -Espresso  
> "I feel like this is a personal attack...." - Clonkie

The week began and Harry and his friends fell into a routine of homework and socialization. If Harry had finished his homework, he and Ron would play chess before bed. Harry had yet to win a game.

Classes were overall going well. They had potion labs on Wednesdays and Fridays. During their Wednesday lab, Neville’s and Harry’s potion only boiled over, rather than explode. Too focused on their chopping, it was too late to save their potion for continuation. Fortunately, Harry was able to scrape together enough to fill their sample bottle for grading even though they didn’t finish. While it was neither the right consistency, nor did it even include all the ingredients, it was within the right colour family, which was an improvement from last week. 

In transfiguration that week, McGonagall collected their worksheets and Seamus sent a grateful smile Harry’s way when he handed his in. Ron, on the other hand, having not read the chapter, had furiously scrawled random answers moments before McGonagall made it to their row. Hermione just shook her head and left her parchment perfectly squared up with the edge of her desk. Harry retrieved his from his bag and also left it on his desk. His hand writing with a quill was still atrocious, but it was complete and he felt confident that he got most of it right.

Defence against the dark arts was a joke to the entire school. Lockheart spent class time retelling his adventures but the details didn’t seem to match what he wrote, or so Hermione told the group one day during lunch. She tried to rationalize it with flimsy reasoning, but Harry wasn’t buying it. He suspected that something wasn’t right and had taken to doing the bare minimum of Lockheart’s work, instead during class he read his own defence books, borrowed from the library . Lockheart took points for inattentiveness but after last year's fiasco, Harry wasn’t taking any chances with being unprepared. 

The excessive point loss was starting to irk some of the other Gryffindors. Seamus asked if he could just sit through the class and pretend to pay attention, but he responded with the same reasoning he had explained to his other friends. 

“We’re clearly not learning anything in his class, and after last year Hogwarts apparently isn’t as safe as everyone thinks it is. I just want to be prepared.” Seamus shook his head and looked at the dwindling hourglass at the front of the Great Hall,

“You could just catch up next year, everyone will have to anyways. We’ll have a new prof, too, so it doesn’t matter what we learn this year.” Ron nodded alongside Seamus. Dean, however, looked at Harry and spoke up,

“I think Harry’s got the right idea. I would feel a bit on edge if I was attacked at school and then the professor who’s supposed to teach us how to defend ourselves was a baboon.” Harry, Ron and Seamus all laughed, but Hermione looked put out.

“He’s not a baboon, he’s saved countless people! He may be an incompetent teacher but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t defend us in a crisis!” Hermione's face flushed and she looked away.

“But Mione, you’re the one who says his stories don’t match his books.” Ron tried to reason with the pouting girl.

“You’d know that for yourself if you even picked up one of them…” She grumbled under her breath and it was Ron’s turn to flush.

“They’re not worth the effort, plus Ginny needed robes and a wand this year so I could only get Magical Me and Voyages with Vampires. I haven’t even made it through the autobiography, where you’ve probably read them twice over by now. You probably read them right before you go to sleep!” The group laughed and Hermione ducked her head. Harry was about to speak up to defend Hermione but she spoke up first,

“At least I can read, Ronald. Speaking of, you’ll have to find someone else to proofread your essays since you can’t be bothered to read them yourself.” Hermione grabbed her bag from under the table and stormed out of the Hall. Thankfully it was a busy study hall, so no one seemed to notice the fight except for the surrounding Gryffindors. They all turned their attention back to their work soon after but Ron was still fuming. Dean spoke up, trying to placate the red head,

“Ron, she probably didn’t mean it. You both said some things in the heat of the moment. Give her time before you both apologize, I’m sure she’ll look over your astronomy essay by Friday. This’ll all blow over.” Seamus nodded along to Dean’s proclamation but Ron seemed to be fixed only on one part of what he said,

“Apologize? Why would I have to apologize, she was the one who insulted me!” Ron shoved his work forward and Harry tried to reason with him,

“But Ronー” Ron looked over, face still red, “ー Like Dean said, you both said some stuff in the heat of the moment, you both should apologize.” Ron just scoffed,

“What she said was worse than what I may have said. It’s her fault!” Ron brought his hand down on the table and Harry flinched back. Seamus spoke up, trying to diffuse the situation,

“Yeah mate, what she said was mean, but you started it by saying mean things, too. How about we take a break and go play quidditch, I'm done trying to puzzle out what happened in the Goblin revolution of 1312.” Ron laughed at the quip about their history homework and the tension broke. Harry let out a sigh of relief. As much as he’d like to go out flying he felt the need to make sure Hermione was okay. After everyone was packed up, Harry made an excuse about needing to work on herbology and going to seek out Neville back at the dorms and they parted ways in the Main Hall.

He quickly climbed the stairs and greeted Elizabeth, who confirmed that Hermione had come back crying. In the common room, he tried to deduce how he could see Hermione, or at least talk to her if he couldn’t go up to her dorm. Only a few minutes of trying to puzzle out a solution, Lavender and Parvati enter the common room laughing about something. Harry lit up and turned to Hermione’s roommates,

“Lavender, Parvati, just who I needed.” They looked at each other in confusion and Harry continued, “Hermione and Ron got into a spat and they both said some pretty mean things. I think Hermione is in your dorm, but I can’t go up. Could you please check on her and let her know I’m here, please?” Both girls were nodding,

“Of course, we were just going to hang out in our dorm anyways. We’ll go make sure she’s okay.” Parvati said, and Harry thanked them. It was another five minutes before anyone made a reappearance down the stairwell. Fay Dunbar, one of Hermione’s other roommates, who must have already been up there when Hermione went up, stepped off the last step.

“We’re going to hang around for a bit in the dorm, she didn’t say much, just that Ron said some mean things and she said meaner things back. She seems pretty broken up about it. She’s in good hands though.” She cracked a smile, “Grace has some facemasks from home that we’re going to do them together. Lavender has never done one before. She’s okay, Harry, don’t worry.” Harry let out a long breath and nodded. 

“Thanks Fay, I appreciate it. Tell the other’s I say thanks, too.” She nodded,

“Anytime. See you later, Harry.” Fay turned and made her way back up to her dorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! 
> 
> Hope everyone is well. School is getting back to a routine and I felt the need to add in some mundane Hogwarts life updates about the kiddos. While in this fic, Ron and Harry are less besties and more good friends, I love the idea of Ron and Hermione being really good friends. The series doesn't really showcase how much time Ron and Hermione actually spend time together because it's told by a 3 person limited perspective of Harry, so when he's not around it's not added but a lot of the time Ron and Hermione are actually together (they don't just sit in silence the whole time, they're friends too). Anyways, I digress... 
> 
> I'm also slightly cheesed that Hermione was never portrayed as bing friends with her own roommates because she basically lives with them and I went to a two week sleep away camp for years and by the end you are thick as thieves, so I can't realistically see Hermione not being close with any of her room mates after living with them for a year already... Because this angle was neglected I had to create an OC (Grace), but idk how much she'll be around.
> 
> Sneak peak, next chapter showcases more Harry and Slytherin student interactions so look forward to that ;-). 
> 
> Like always, take care friends. Hope everything is well with y'all and you're enjoying this so far!


	15. Difference in Education

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry spends personal time with one of his new Slytherin friends, they converse about the differences in education.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Friends! Posting a little late cause I wanted Espresso to have time to edit, unfortunately they're pretty swamped with school so just Betad by Toast this time :-). I wanted to get the chapter up anyways cause once you break the routine it's hard to get back into it. I digress. 
> 
> Our note from Toast, who's a Bio major, I think perfectly reflects their thoughts on the survival rates of the Wizarding world.   
> "frickin wizards. its a wonder they werent killed off before voldemort just from natural selection. these idiots"

Knowing that Hermione was okay took a weight off of Harry’s shoulders. Harry had time to himself, Ron was out playing pickup quidditch, and Hermione was with her dorm mates. Thinking of ways to spend his time, Harry remembered a reading spot he’d been meaning to try. There was an alcove on the fifth floor that had a big window looking out across the expansive forest and a comfy bench built into the sill. Destination decided, he made his way out of the common room and down to the fifth floor. 

Harry had been sitting in the seldom used corridor, making notes in his library book for half an hour when Theodore Nott walked by. Both boys froze. Apparently, this was a popular reading spot because Nott was carrying two books close to his chest. Harry unlocked his gaze and looked over to the other side of the alcove where his stuff had spread out. He reached out, gathered his items, and drew his knees up, making space for Nott if he wanted to join. Harry busied himself by putting some leftover parchment back into his bag while Nott hesitantly approached the other seat. Harry, not looking up again, continued on with his reading, making notes on potential communication ideas for their beads. Harry saw out of his peripheral, Nott side eyeing him for a moment before eventually cracking his own book. 

The two boys read in amicable silence with only Harry’s occasional mutterings of sticking charms for the sticky notes. Trying to limit the noise he was making, Harry attempted to silently do the sticking charm, only for him to groan when it didn’t work after multiple attempts.

“It’s about intent, you have to mean it.” Nott said without looking up from his book. Harry rolled his eyes but tried again willing the small parchment to stick to the page. Harry set his wand down beside him and lightly tugged on the parchment, smiling when it didn’t immediately fall off. Peaceful silence fell again between them now that Harry was casting the charm silently. It wasn’t until almost dinner when the upper year classes were getting out and that Harry was struck with an idea.

“Morse Code” He whispered and then immediately smacked himself in the face.

“What?” Theo looked up from his book, watching Harry mutter to himself. Ceasing muttering, he looked up, locked eyes with Nott, and grinned,

“I figured it out, Morse Code, that’s the solution.” Harry started packing up. Nott closed his book.

“Solution to what? What’s morose Code?” Nott seemed genuinely invested in what he was saying and Harry paused to look at him. He knew that Nott was one of the smartest in their year, and he read fast, judging by the fact that he was on his second book that he brought with him.

“It’s a language, well sort of. It was used by the muggles during one of the world wars to communicate without using words so it couldn’t be intercepted and translated, I think. I’m a little fuzzy on the history.”

“How? Wait, what?” Nott just looked plain confused and Harry laughed, 

“They changed the letters in the alphabet to be a combination of long and short tones. We talked about it in history class, if you know the combination for each letter you can piece together a word or even a sentence.”

“History? We never talked about this in history, I think I’d remember that.” Nott question and Harry flustered a bit,

“I meant my history class in school back in the muggle world, before Hogwarts…” The Slytherin boy just looked even more baffled.

“Wait why were you in school before Hogwarts?” Now it was Harry’s turn to be confused,  
“What do you mean? Muggle school starts at 4, you go to primary school and then eventually high school. What did you do before Hogwarts?” Harry sat back down on the bench, more interested in Nott’s response than pursuing morse code research in the library at the moment. Nott shifted in his seat before settling with his knees bent up against his chest squishing his two books to his chest,

“Um, well, I had tutors for the main subjects, but I mostly stayed around the manor. If other pureblood families had kids my age we’d take turns visiting each other.” Harry sat for a moment. He’d come to the conclusion last year that there didn’t seem to be a school before Hogwarts but still people came with intuitive knowledge about magic. 

“So you had private tutors? That’s how you learnt about magic before Hogwarts?” Nott just nodded and Harry gave a mirthless laugh. 

“I’ve been in school for years now and your first real year of school was last year? Everything else was just tutors?” Nott nodded once more before voicing his question,

“What did you learn at muggle school?” He asked as if it was a forbidden question, but then again, Harry reasoned, he was a pureblood so it might have actually been one. He smiled at the clueless boy across from him,

“You know how Hogwarts has the core subjectsー” Nott hummed in understanding “ーwell so does muggle school, except, instead of potions, transfiguration, and charms, it’s math, science, and english. They just get harder as you grow up, like how there’s first year potions versus NEWT level potions, NEWTs are clearly going to be harder because we’ve already been studying potions for years.” Harry explained and Nott seemed enthralled. 

“And you start school at 4?” 

“Yeah, but it’s the really basic stuff and it’s not all academic based. When it’s the really young years there’s play times scheduled in and everything.” Harry continued. Nott jumped in, 

“Wait, so back to this morose code thing, you learnt this in a muggle history class?” Harry chuckled,

“It’s called Morse Code, I think it’s named after someone, but yeah. We were learning about the world wars in history and my history teacher was also my english teacher so she talked about the language aspects of it for a double lesー” Harry was cut off before he could continue, 

“Your professor taught you two subjects?!” Nott interrupted and Harry doubled over laughing.

“I’ll have to introduce you to Hermione, she likes talking about the differences between the two school systems. I think she had a group of Ravenclaws interested in it as well.” Nott smiled and gave a slight nod, “Anyways, in muggle school you don’t have to be an expert in the subject to teach it, so you can teach multiple subjects. I’m not quite sure how it works, Hermione would know.” Harry mused.

“Wow, I didn’t realize it was that complex. Could you, um, let Granger know I’d like to learn more, but, um keep it between us...” Nott looked away and added a quiet ‘please’ a moment later. Harry detected a sad note in his voice.

“Yeah, absolutely, I’m sure she’ll be refreshed to have someone willing to learn more about her culture rather than the other way around.” Nott looked back, raising an eyebrow, so Harry continued, “Well coming from the muggle world myself, it was a lot of us learning magical customs, but people didn’t really ask much about the muggle world, so I’m sure she’ll be ecstatic to talk to you about it.” Nott let out a quiet hum of thought before changing the subject,

“So what’s the relevance to this morose, uh Morse Code?” Harry brightened at the reminder about his idea,

“Oh right! Have you ever wanted to talk to one of your friends, but you weren't with them?” Nott tilted his head, waiting for Harry to get to the point,

“Yeah, plenty of times. What does this code have anything to do with that?”

“I’m just working on a project with my friendsー” Harry clamoured back onto his feet, “ーTo uh, try and make it easier to talk to each other. I need to get to the library to do some research.” He reached down to pick up his bag and when he stood up Nott was next to him,  
“I’m coming with you.” Harry hesitated, thinking back to one of his recent comments and then looked at his determined face.

“You can come with me, but you’ll be seen with me. The library will be busy, it’s the end of the day...” Nott paused too, probably thinking of a solution to their predicament. 

“I’m invested in this project of yours, communication outside of floo is virtually unheard of in the wizarding world. How about I go in first and then you wait a bit and then come in. When you go where you need to go and I’ll follow discreetly.” Harry sighed in resignation, but didn’t say anything except ‘okay, sounds good’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Friends! Hope everyone is well. Time has kinda lost all concept and I can't remember when I left the house last. So here's a chapter! 
> 
> I Had a lot of fun writing this actually because it's really interesting to think about the implications of actual wizard education... Like do they really only go to school for the first time when they're 11? What happens if both parents of a pureblood family work, where does the child go? How do they standardize the education of purebloods who've grown up around magic, and someone who just learnt they were a wizard? We need answers people!! So if anyone has similar questions, or has answers to these ones, shoot me a comment. 
> 
> I want to shout out all my regular commenters too cause y'all are the best and make my week <3\. Thanks to everyone who's become as invested in this as I am, and I really do hope everyone is doing okay with whatever challenges you're facing. 
> 
> Like always, take care friends.


	16. Hidden in the Stacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two boys journey into the stacks of the library in a quest to find knowledge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE 
> 
> Thanks toast for the last line of this, it was/still is hilarious :-)

“Madam, do you have books on World War 1 or 2?” Harry asked Madam Pince at the front desk, after waiting outside for three and a half minutes once Nott had gone in. Nott was situated at the table closest to the information desk, fake reading one of the books he’d already read in the alcove. Every so often, Nott would look over his book, keeping tabs on the conversation unfolding at the front desk. Madame Pince’s eyes brightened,

“Really interested in the muggle studies these days, aren’t you, Harry?” She laughed. Instead of getting up and leading Harry to the section, she wrote a call number on a piece of parchment that Harry took gratefully. After a second thought she leaned in slightly, lowering her voice, “I believe you and your companion can find the section without my assistance, just remember we’re in a school...” Harry sputtered for a moment, quickly composing himself,

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m really just looking for books about the wars.” Harry didn’t know if Nott reacted behind him, but if he did, Harry hoped he hid it better than himself. Madam Pince had the audacity to wink before continuing,

“Ah, okay then, enjoy yourselves,” She made a noise that sounded like it could have been a bark of laughter or a fake cough before continuing, “I mean yourself.” She gave Harry a light smile and Harry’s face flushed, before muttering,

“It’s not like that.” Harry prepared for more embarrassment once the librarian responded in the hushed tone, 

“I understand dear, just pulling your leg. It’s nice to see you young people branching out to other houses again. You know, my best friend was in Hufflepuff even when I was a Claw myself, of course the house rivalry wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now, but still...” She gave a nod of finality and turned back to the book she was currently fixing.

Harry took the cue to leave and looked down at the piece of crumpled parchment in his hand. The call number was pretty high and all the nearby signs for the closer book shelves were much lower. He made his way over to the far right and continued down a few cases before branching off, waiting for Nott to arrive now that they were out of sight. 

A couple minutes later he heard footsteps on the flagstone and he waited for him to pass the turn before revealing himself, slightly startling the other boy. Harry laughed and Nott glared, as they made their way down the stacks, looking for the right section. Harry having been to the muggle section a few times prior, had a vague idea of where to go. Nott, having never been so far into the library just trailed behind Harry, until he broke the silence,

“Good friends, are you?” Harry glanced back at the taller boy, confused about who he was talking about until it hit him. Harry stopped walking, but Nott continued, not expecting the sudden halt. Harry groaned.

“You heard what she said, didn’t you? Oh my god.” Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, Nott on the other hand, chose to laugh, 

“She seemed nice, I never realized…” Nott smirked and Harry covered his face with his hands,

“It’s not like that,” He groaned and continued, “A lot of people don’t like her and are really rude, but she’s really smart and has helped me fix my bag or go over an essay.” Harry brushed past Nott and turned the final corner, deflecting all the looks Nott was throwing at him. Quickly scanning the cherry shelves, Harry grabbed what looked like a World War 2 book and sat on the ground. Above him, Nott rolled his eyes, grabbed the next book on the case, and cast a cushioning charm on the floor, before joining Harry on the ground.

“So, what are we looking for?” Nott flipped open the book to the table of contents.

“Mentions of Morse code, preferably a picture of a chart. The chart will just be the alphabet on one side and a bunch of dots and dashes on the other.” Harry responded.

Nott started skimming the table of contents and flipped to a page, while Harry retrieved his wand, casting the research charm on the book set on the ground in front of him.

The book snapped open and rapidly flipped through all the pages before closing again. Nott looked over questioningly from his own book at Harry, who sheepishly smiled, causing the Slytherin to roll his eyes. Harry replaced the book on the shelf and grabbed the next one, eager to repeat the process. This time, Nott didn’t even attempt to fake read, he just sat, watching Harry concentrate on casting the spell right. Once the book closed, Harry sighed and whipped his brow as Nott spoke up,

“What’s that spell you’re using?” Harry stood up, already moving onto the next book.

“Oh, um, it’s a finding spell, you concentrate on a word you want to find in a book and it’ll show you where it’s mentioned. It takes a lot out of you, though.” Harry sat back down on the ground taking a breather before looking through another book. Nott was still watching Harry,

“Where’d you learn it?” Harry didn’t respond, instead he dug through his bag and handed him his library book, opening it to one of the sticky-noted pages. Nott muttered a quiet ‘thank you’ and read intently. Harry sighed and picked up the next history book, opting to take a break and just read through the table of contents instead, hoping he wouldn’t miss it. Nott sat beside him and practiced the wand movements to the spell before performing it on his own book he had been skimming. It took two attempts for the book to start fluttering through pages, but it stopped short before the book closed. Nott looked up at Harry,

“Found it, I think.” Harry put his book aside while Nott set his book on the ground between them.

“This is it, brilliant.” Harry smiled up at the other boy, who Harry could have sworn had a slight smile, too. 

”So, what’s the difference between long and short? How does it work?” Nott asked. Harry pointed to the chart,

“These short ones are the dots and the long one represent the dashes. You can tap out each letter in sequence, the dots being a short tap and the dashes a longer one. Like thisー'' Harry held out his hand for Nott’s, who hesitantly offered it. Harry started tapping on the back, first four short times, then he paused, after adding another two short times. Nott looked confused and Harry spoke up,

“Look at the chart, the fast taps are the dots, the longer ones are the dashes. What did I say?” He tapped it out again.

“Hi? That was for sure all short taps.” Nott breathed, letting a short smirk grace his face.  
“Yup. This’ll definitely work.” Harry chuckled. This was going to be perfect for their bracelets, he thought. 

Nott graciously created numerous copies of the code charts for Harry and his friends, showing Harry the spell as he did it.

“Thanks, I’ve been meaning to learn that…'' He made a scrawled note on a spare piece of parchments detailing the hand movements and Nott responded,

“A spell for a spell, that research charm is going to be quite useful.” Harry nodded, still feeling a bit drained for using it so much. It didn’t help that he didn’t eat much at lunch. Dinner had most likely started by then, but he wasn’t sure if he was up for braving the Great Hall feeling this tired. 

The two gathered their things and Nott attempted to sneak a copy of the code sheet but Harry noticed and shrugged,

“It’s not like I can stop you from coming back and just copying another one, might as well save you the trip.” Nott hummed in agreement, looking smug and Harry rolled his eyes. They began making their way through the stacks and Harry spoke up again,

“It’s the middle of dinner, I don’t think there’ll be that many people in the main library, but it’s up to you if you want to leave staggered.” Harry stopped and let Nott think for a moment. Harry wasn’t planning on going to dinner even though it was nearly over and wouldn’t be that busy. Besides, he had other important things to do. Harry was snapped out of his thoughts by Nott clearing his throat,

“Let’s go.” Harry nodded and pushed off the book case he was leaning against. Harry waived a quick goodbye to Madam Pince on their way out. He turned towards the charms corridor, opposite of the Great Hall and the other boy continued to follow. Harry just raised an eyebrow, asking,

“Not going to dinner, Nott? I’m sure you can catch the tail end. The Slytherins tend to eat late anyways, so your friends might be there.” 

“My friends have other endeavours at the moment, and while homework sounds exciting, I am much more invested in your secret project.” Nott paused and Harry stopped walking. Slightly frowning, Harry looked over at the boy he had spent the past few hours with. Nott didn’t meet his gaze before he spoke up, “I suppose after our impromptu library excursion and our reading session upstairs, we can be on a first name basis now. Call me Theo.” Harry broke out in a smile, 

“You can drop the Potter and call me Harry, if you’d like. I was going to go to Flitwick’s, I have some charms I need help with if you want to come, Theo?” Harry tried out the name. Theo grinned, responding with,

“The elusive Harry Potter needs help with school work?” Sarcasm dripping from every word. Harry scoffed and rolled his eyes as he continued down towards the half Goblin’s classroom.

“Yet, I’m the one who needs to explain what Orange Juice is.” Harry smirked as Theo jogged to meet up with him.

“Orange what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, it's not the weekend! 
> 
> I have some life developments that might lead to to have to put this on hiatus (not until a couple months!!!! Don't worry I ain't stopping any time soon if I can help it) but I need to plan this fic out a bit more than I had originally thought if I want to get it up in time before I have to leave to the illustrious land of no wifi. 
> 
> So I thought I'd get an extra chapter up if I could, this is from my back log from a couple weeks back I had edited two chapters and then another one last week. So we're current again, and am still planning on updating this weekend, this doesn't replace that dw. 
> 
> Anyways, take care friends, hope everyone has a productive rest of the week :-). Enjoy.


	17. Patents and Hesitance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Theo visit their Charms professor in the hopes he could be of assistance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends, another chapter for y'all :-). 
> 
> Thanks again to our Beta's cause my writing this chapter was not great :/, but they fixed it :-)!
> 
> Theres a part where Theo connects two things *insert the buzzfeed unsolved meme*  
> "I've connected the dots" -Toast
> 
> "Flitwick: you've connected nothing  
> Theo: I've connected them!" -Me
> 
> "*Theo holding his head in one hand while the other points to a wall full of papers and connecting trails of red yarn* 'You see this, I've connected them!'" -Espresso

Once at the Charms professor’s door, Harry promptly knocked. The mahogany door swung open, revealing Flitwick’s hunched form over some papers, hand still hovering in the air from mindlessly opening the door. Harry walked in with Theo trailing in behind him. At the second set of footsteps, the professor lifted his head and smiled,

“Mr. Potter, I see you’ve brought Mr. Nott with you. I presume this isn't one of our regular visits?” Harry shook his head,

“No, not right now, Professor,” Harry paused for a moment, “But, thank you for earlier, sir, it helped.” Flitwick nodded, gesturing to the two chairs situated in front of his mahogany desk.  
“Come in, take a seat. What can I do for you boys?” The two students settled into the navy upholstered arm chairs. Theo nodded towards the patiently waiting professor as he and Harry made eye contact. Harry swallowed,

“I was, uh, wondering if you could help me with some charm work for a personal project. But, if you’re busy I get it.” A brief thought of leaving filtered through Harry’s mind, telling him that he was wasting the man’s time. Before he could actually act on them, Theo pulled him from his stupor,

“It really is a feat of genius, we were talking about it earlier and if it works it could revolutionize communication in the wizarding world.” Harry started to stammer, staring Theo down, missing the shining glint in their professors eye.

“How about you explain further over tea, Harry.” Harry was about to chime in, but the Half Goblin beat him to the punch, “Even if it may not work, I’m still interested in the idea that has Mr. Nott calling it genius.” Harry’s face heated up and took a moment to compose himself while Flitwick and Theo prepared tea. Evidently, the perceptive head of house noticed Harry’s apprehension and while he passed the shy boy his cup, Flitwick added,

“Harry, I’m excited to help. I adore hearing about the projects my students are working on. I don’t have a lot of time for my own research projects, with being a head of house and teaching, so I love to hear about other’s research and see if I can help.” He squeaked, giving a soft smile towards the nervous boy. Harry, as much as he hated to admit it, knew that they needed the charms professor’s help. The magic was just too complicated and they needed it to work. He took a breath, shoving the thoughts of undeservingness back, and spoke up.

“Essentially, my Gryffindor friends and I were trying to find a way to talk with each other while in different parts of the castle. Kinda like a cell phone can, but for obvious reasons we can’t just get phones, so we were trying to come up with an alternate method.” Flitwick nodded along, seemingly deep in thought. Harry continued, “This year I’ve noticed a lot of similarities and differences with the muggle world versus the wizarding one. Specifically that there are a lot of things that muggles have invented that wizards don’t have.” Harry knew he was dancing around the topic, but Flitwick looked hooked. Harry was cut off by Theo over-dramatically sighing,

“Get to the point, Potter, spill the project. I’ll die of old age before you ever get to the point. How does Morse code play into this?” Nott complained, letting his head fall back, slumping further into the chair. Harry rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

“Anyways.” Harry stool a glance at Theo who smirked back, “We came up with this idea that if everyone had a bracelet with beads on it that were charmed to be connected we could tap out messages and ‘talk’ with each other. Like everyone would have their own bead…” Harry trailed off as he started digging through his bag looking for his pencil case. Retrieving the beads he placed them on the desk and sorted them by bracelet. 

“Basically we all have a bead representing someone and they’re charmed connected so if you tap on, say the lavender bead, it buzzes and warms on whomever the lavender bead belongs to.” Harry sat back in his chair while Theo snapped to attention, turning towards the messy haired boy,

“That’s where morse code comes in! You tap in the patterns.” Harry nodded and Theo smiled to himself, looking proud to have made the connection. Flitwick scanned the beads with a curious eye.

“What patterns? How would you understand each other if a bead just buzzes and warms up?” He summoned some parchment and a quill and started taking notes on the project.

“Morse code. It’s another muggle thing. Basically the alphabet is broken up into different sequences and depending on the pattern it means different letters.” Harry explained at the confused look from the professor’s face. He once again rummaged through his bag and pulled out one of the translation sheets, handing it over to the small professor. The professor sat quietly for a moment, eyes roaming over the chart before his quill picked itself up and started taking more notes.

“Well, first of all, Harry, this idea is simply brilliant.” Harry’s head snapped up from the flagstone he’d been watching. “The combination of muggle and magical elements is really quite smart.” Harry blushed hard, avoiding the professor’s gaze, and mumbled,

“It was a group effort professor, we just wanted to talk to each other.” Theo scoffed,

“You were the one to think of using Morse code, I doubt even Granger would’ve thought of that one.” Harry shrunk further into the chair, quickly changing the subject to get the praise off of him,

“What we need help with is the heating and vibration charms. We also don’t really know how to bind the different beads together either, nothing that’ll work the distance of the castle at least. We could have done the research ourselves, but it probably wouldn’t work as well and wouldn’t last. You said if I needed一” Harry paused “一you’re just always around, and you’re the charms professor so I thought, maybe you’d know what to do. Save us the time…” Harry trailed off, wringing his hands in his lap. Flitwick refilled his cup and looked at Harry, lightly gesturing with the tea pot. Harry nodded and pushed his empty cup forward to be refilled.

Theo also refilled his cup and Harry was mid thought, wondering if this was the same tea set that Flitwick and Snape used when the small man himself spoke up,

“Well Harry, I would have to do some research myself.” He held up his hand cutting short Harry’s interruption. “I’m Ravenclaw’s head of house for a reason, child. I’m thoroughly intrigued by your idea and am excited to read more about bonding charms. There certainly are other implications that it can be used in. I say I might even ask to borrow your idea for the other head of houses...” Flitwick mused.

“Of course, professor. You’d be helping, you don't have to ask for permission.” Harry interjected, but Theo whipped his head around to face him rather than the professor,

“Potter一Harry, you have a brilliant idea, you need to patent it! Of course he has to ask, it’s your idea!” Harry turned towards the short haired boy,

“It’s not that big of a deal, if it helps him, too, why does it matter…” Harry trailed off at the disbelieving look on Theo’s face. Turning to Flitwick for help, a similar look mirrored on the professor’s face.

“Harry,” The professor started, “you and your friends’ idea is very well thought out and could be developed fairly quickly. I believe the hardest part would be learning and implementing Morse code, and that just entails learning the associated patterns. The charms work itself could be done by a seventh year, dare I say sixth.” Theo nodded along to what the professor said, looking back and forth between the two parties. 

The professor continued, “Like Mr. Nott said, this is revolutionary for the wizarding world, not just Hogwarts. There are very few communication methods here, the most common is banishing nots, but that requires both parties to know where each other are. It is something you should consider patenting. I, and very likely Mr. Nott, am willing to help you if you so wish.” The kind professor gave a soft smile, but Harry squirmed under the gaze. He didn’t want to make it a big deal, he just wanted a way he could tell his friends he was okay without having to actually find them. 

“I’ll think about it. Thank you, sir.” Accepting the response the half goblin spoke again,

“I’ll see what I can do over the next week. Could I create a copy of the Morse code translations please?” Harry nodded and the translations appeared at the bottom underneath the professor’s notes. The two boys began gathering their belongings, Harry packing up the beads and parchment. Flitwick jumped down from his custom chair and began banishing the tea set, presumably to the kitchen to be cleaned. Both boys bid farewell and made their way out of the classroom.

“I suppose dinner is long over by now?” Theo asked.

“Yep, probably,” Harry tapped his wrist, checking his tempus. Theo just raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. Harry, missing the look Theo shot him, attempted to distract himself from the anxiety for the meeting as he cracked a joke. “Probably a good thing too, God forbid a Slytherin and a Gryffindor show up at the Great Hall together.” Harry snickered and Theo just rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I suppose we'll have to keep up certain appearances until other populations come around.” 

“Hogwarts really doesn't push house unity. I guess if you want to count the sorting hat’s song at the beginning of the year it does a little bit, but not nearly enough?” Harry mused. Nott silently agreed.

“No, it doesn’t. At the beginning of the year Professor Snape gives this big speech about how our house is our family and how Slytherins in particular must stick together. It kinda implies not to branch out for risk of getting hurt, cause the other houses already have a bias and all that.” 

Harry hummed deep in thought, “I suppose how you break the cycle is to break the prejudice. To do that, you have to make friends in other houses, to take a risk.” Theo nodded and they rounded the last corner and the Main Hall came into sight, where the stairwell leading down to the dungeon. 

“Bye, Harry.” Theo bid.

“Bye, Theo.” Harry broke off and headed back upstairs towards Gryffindor tower, well within curfew for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the extra chapter this week. I'm trying to figure out a way to get this all posted faster and that may entail me having to post twice a week. I'm applying for a job that from basically May- end of August I'll be crazy busy and have limited wifi so basically I gotta get this posted or go on a scheduled hiatus. Obviously I'd prefer to get it all done but for anyone who's a writer you know you can't just sit yourself down and force it all... Plus online uni is still a thing lol. 
> 
> Anyways I'm making a plan and working out how many chapters and whatnot are left and talking it out with Toast and Espresso, but I thought I'd keep y'all in the loop. Don't worry there's still lots of time to figure it out and I'll be posting still in the mean time, if not more ;-)
> 
> Thanks again to everyone who's commented, left kudos, or even just check this fic out. I really love hearing from everyone and knowing that people are enjoying this as much as I am, it makes me really happy, so thank you so much <3.
> 
> As always, take care everyone.


	18. Thestrals are Good Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and a the Snakes bond a bit more. Harry has another evening adventure outside with a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy Friends, sorry this is late. Life is wack.....
> 
> Side story to explain the comments by Toast and Espresso, basically when I first wrote this it wasn't broken into chapter. Then the first time I read through most of it I broke it into chapters. Then when I started editing it, the chapters would sometimes become broken down into separate chapters because I was writing extra plot line in between chapters. So long story short, the past 5 chapters have all been titled Chapter 9-9.4 in the editing doc.... This leads us us to todays' notes.
> 
> "Praise be Merlin, the real chosen one, chapter 10, hath risen." -Espresso
> 
> "ive been waiting for this moment for so long" - Toast

With Flitwick working on the charms for Harry and his friends, the group began trying to grasp morse code throughout the rest of the week. While the concept was easy to understand, it was hard to remember each pattern. Even if the delivery was right, it would sometimes still be lost in translation. Thus, to practice, throughout the week the gang would randomly tap out messages on each other. Most of the time it was simple ‘hello’s’ while in passing, but occasionally they’d tried harder messages.

After Thursday’s astronomy prepclass for their weekend lab, the two friend groups, the Lions and the Snakes, found themselves teaming up in the library after they coincidentally ran into each other trying to grab a table a few days prior, during study hall. Since neither group understood their lab on parallax, they decided to work together.

Now, occasionally the Slytherins would join the Gryffindors in the back of the library during a study period, helping each other by editing work or practicing charms together. Madam Pince seemed to have caught on because she’d smirk at Harry and his friends when they’d walked by a couple minutes after Theo, Blaise, and Pansy had.

They had a system worked out in a tentative alliance. In return for history help, Pansy had taught Hermione some hair spells, while Blaise and Theo retaught potion theory to Neville and Harry. Near the end of a study session, Harry and Hermione would talk about the muggle world to the clueless purebloods, while the others explained some of the more obscure customs of the wizarding world. Tension between the lions and the snakes seemed to be decreasing as younger years, Harry included, started reaching out to other houses after seeing Harry and his group do the same. Despite the lessening hostility, Malfoy and his cronies continued to torment Harry, who dutifully attempted to ignore it, which just seemed to irk the blond even more. 

As the weekend rolled around, The GriffenGang met with Flitwick who presented them with his research, 

“I found some charms that should connect the beads but they’ll need time for the magic sets in before extensive use.” The professor explained. 

“Makes sense, professor,” Hermione jumped in, “Thank you so much for your help, it would’ve taken us until Christmas at least to figure it out.” The other two boys coursed out their own thank you’s and the professor gratefully accepted the thanks.

“Just make sure you use them responsibly, no cheating on tests. If I hear about any suspicious activity I’ll have to alert the other teachers to confiscate them during class hours.” Hermione looked affronted at the accusation that they’d cheat, Neville and Harry hastily agreed.

At the end of their meeting, Harry also gave full permission for Flitwick to create some for the heads of houses, promising to return at some point to discuss a patent, before the three slipped from the room. He’d been talked into the idea during a particularly heated study session with his Gryffindor friends and Theo, who they found in a nearby stack also studying the same material and invited him over. Both parties were practically yelling at Harry to patent the idea, so much so that Madam Pince appeared around a bookcase to shoot him look as if to say she’d throw them out, so Harry relented just so they would shut up. 

The rest of the weekend passed in a flurry of assignments, midnight labs for astronomy, and a short cooking session making lemonade, much to Neville’s excitement. The week wore on, as Harry tried to keep up with the workload but was quickly losing steam after not having a break during the weekend. Wednesday, after a particularly grueling lab with Snape, the Gryffindors made their way to transfiguration to find their graded tests face down on their desks. Harry quickly made his way over to his desk, anxious to see if his hours of studying and his confidence of doing well came to fruition for the test on Gamp’s law.

The class took their seats and checked their test results, Harry saw Hermione’s red 100% on the top of her parchment and Harry tentatively flipped over his own to see a 68%. He bit his lip, turning over the test not wanting to look at it much longer. He looked over again to see Hermione patiently explaining the questions to Ron who seemed to haven't done much better than himself. McGonagall let the class have a few minutes to discuss the test. The Ravenclaws, who they shared class with, seemed to be content with their marks for the most part. Harry just sat listening to Hermione’s explanations to Ron and seeing where he went wrong. The rest of class went by incredibly slowly as McGonagall also went through the questions on the test and started the next lesson, assigning two more chapters to read by next class. 

Thankfully Transfiguration was their last class of the day and as soon as they were dismissed Harry left without so much as a goodbye to his friends. Making his way to the kitchen, Harry slipped in, quickly locating Bippy. Her eyes went wide for a moment, probably not expecting Harry so soon.

“Hey Bippy, do you provide food for Hagrid to feed the animals in the forest or does he do that all himself?” Harry let his gaze drift around the kitchen. The dinner rush was in full swing while the finishing touches were added and stasis charms were cast while the food sat ready to be consumed. Bippy saw Harry looking around and summoned a plate that started to fill itself up as it floated over. A stool nudged the back of his knees and Harry sat, just as the plate settled on the counter in front of him.

“Eat and then we’ll discuss forest food.” Bippy all but commanded. He had learnt early on that while house elves were treated abombially by family, the Hogwarts House Elves seemed to be a mix of rescued and local house elves. Bippy was the head elf and oversaw everything in her kitchen, she also seemed to take Harry in under her care when he came to visit. Harry knew not to cross her so he ate the stew set on his lap while Bippy went back to commanding the kitchen.

Once the bowl was empty and Harry’s stomach full, the boy was handed a bag full of apples and a pound of red meat wrapped in stasis paper. Harry waved goodbye to the rest of the kitchen and climbed out the portrait. 

The halls were quiet with the start of dinner as Harry slipped out the main door, heading towards the forest. He passed by Black Lake, glancing at the shoreline and catching a figure looking out at the still water. Harry did a double take, not having expected anyone to skip out on dinner to stand outside in the slight chill of dusk.

He had a pretty good idea of who it might be, but he still proceeded with caution. Once only a few feet away he called out her name,

“Pansy? You okay?” Pansy turned around to face Harry. Rapidly wiping at her face, she sniffled,

“Harry? What are you doing out here? I thought it was dinner…” She tailed off, not meeting his eyes.

“I was going to feed the Thestrals, want to come?” He asked. She nodded and they both turned away from the inky black lake and headed towards the forest.

Harry let Pansy lead because she seemed to know the way. The two walked in a line, navigating through the trees and across rocky patches, listening to the sounds of the forest around them. Once further in, Pansy lit her wand, walking a little longer until they found a clearing. Harry lit his own wand, pointing it towards his bag as he dug around, finding a small jam jar and setting it at his feet. Muttering Hermione’s bluebell flame spell, a soft blue glow emanated from the jar. Pansy turned towards the light source, having calmed down during the walk.

“You just carry a jar with you?” Pansy sassed. Harry placed a hand over his heart, feigning hurt,

“Pansyー” Harry deadpanned “ーYou can never know when you’ll need a lantern. It’s not like I can just carry fire around in my hand?” Pansy rolled her eyes,

“We have wands, we can just use them.”

“Really, I didn’t notice.” Harry mocked. Pansy burst out laughing and he followed suit. After a moment, he continued to explain, “this is just easier cause you don't have to hold it and the jar isn’t that big to carry around.” Pansy snorted.

“Only you Potter, only you.” She shook her head and Harry shrugged. They fell into comfortable silence as Harry opened the package of meat and set it in the middle of the clearing. Grabbing the jar he made his way over to the edge and sat on some rocks. Pansy joined him and they waited. 

Ten minutes later there was a rustling across the clearing and the thestrals made an appearance. Two adults and a foal emerged, sniffing the ground until they made it to the centre. One of the adults nudged the foal and it started eating the raw meat. Harry reached over into his bag and passed Pansy an apple. They waited until all the meat was gone before slowly getting up. The two adults stood protectively in front of the baby while Harry and Pansy approached.

Harry slowly extended a hand, letting the theastral come to him. He had never touched one before, only seen them pull the carriage. Pansy, who the family seemed to recognize, was already stroking the other horse, feeding it the apple from her hand. The other adult nudged his own hand and his gaze shot away from Pansy to the creature. He smiled up to the horse as he began stroking his head. Harry revealed his apple and the leathery animal made quick work. The baby began to whinny and Harry’s horse turned its attention back to their child. Harry grabbed the rest of the apples from his bag, handing another two to Pansy who was petting the mane of the other horse. Harry knelt down on the cool forest floor and extended his hand holding an apple towards the foal. Instead, one of the adults grabbed it out of Harry’s hand and brought it over to the foal.

“They’re really protective, I’ve only pet the baby once or twice.” Pansy whispered to Harry. Nodding to Pansy, he rose to his feet and continued to feed apples to the horses. After a few more minutes of petting the horses started to get restless and were rustling their folded wings. The two students stepped away and went to go sit back on the rocks, satisfied with just watching the misunderstood creatures. 

Soon after the animals made their way back into the hidden forest, Pansy stood up.  
“We should probably get back, dinner will be ending soon…” Harry nodded and extinguished the flame in the jar. Casting aguamenti on the jar it steamed as it cooled down enough for Harry to pick it up and put it back into his bag. Pansy rolled her eyes, but waited for Harry to finish packing up before they left. 

Half way through their exit of the forest Harry spoke up,

“If you’re hungry you can go to the kitchens and ask for Bippy. Tell her that you missed dinner cause you were with me, she’ll make you a plate.” Pansy nodded,

“Thanks. I wasn’t very hungry earlier but I guess I could eat something now…” She trailed off. Harry nodded in understanding. The two continued their trek back up to the castle in the dark and silence. They exchanged quick goodbyes when they entered the Main Hall, both parties making their way to their respective floors, but Harry noticed that Pansy took the alternative stairwell that also led to the kitchen. He smiled to himself as he began his long assent back to Gryffindor Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy, sorry I'm late... I appreciate y'all waiting up tho.
> 
> Basically my body crashed once reading week hit and I kinda went comatose, and I had a late assignment to finish. I also signed a lease! That was a full/half day adventure, we video toured a place and then like 10 minutes later texted the guy saying we'd take it. Lots of adulting.
> 
> Good news is I kinda know how I'm going to end this / have some points I want to hit to get there so planning out has been going well. Even if I don't post a chapter doesn't mean I'm not constantly thinking about this lol.
> 
> And next best set of news, Toast has lent me their LEGO Harry Potter year 1-4 wii game and I'm STOKED! 
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who's supporting this through commenting and reading I really appreciate everyone. Like always, take care <3


	19. Dinner Time Conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our friends have some dinner time banter as well as another Weasley appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! Hope things are going well. Reading week was a nice break, but is it really a break if you still have a bunch of projects to do.... I digress. I actually really like this chapter because it develops a lot of points I've been hinting at for a while as well as is the first instigator to the actual CoS plot line. 
> 
> There's a lot of talk about stationary near the end and some sneaky (no so sneaky) product placement that the Beta's had a lot to say about it.
> 
> "sly advertisement" - Espresso  
> "the heckin best pen in the universe i love her" - Toast
> 
> "no Ron you can't be that dense" - Espresso  
> "its a quill with the ink already in it ron damn, they do be idiots" - Toast  
> "you can't deny that you don't like taking apart pens to see how they work even tho you already know...." -Me  
> "only if it's yellow... and then i never put it back together" - Toast

Harry and Co. stayed after Friday’s class to meet with Flitwick about the bracelets. At the sight of the lingering students, the small professor broke out into a grin. 

“I take it the charms have set in and they work?” Harry smiled down at one of his favourite professors. 

“You are most correct, Mr. Potter.” Squeaked Flitwick. The small man ducked out of the classroom and into his office, leaving the four students loitering at the front of the room.

“What worked?” Ron asked. 

“The thing for morse code.” Ron just nodded. They had filled him in last Thursday when Harry was explaining his impromptu library trip with Theo. Ron had come down to apologize to Hermione after being persuaded by Dean earlier in their dorm. While the idea seemed interesting, Ron promptly lost motivation once he discovered that they had to basically learn a new alphabet. In the end, Harry offered to teach Ron at a slower pace, and add him to the bracelet once the redhead was comfortable enough with the new language. After Ron had hesitantly agreed, the group hadn’t talked much about the magic behind the beads with Ron since.

Flitwick re-emerged from his office and gestured to the front row of desks. The charms Professor distributed the beads to the three, giving the extras for the other bracelets to Harry. Hermione retrieved the leather pieces they had gotten from Hagrid earlier in the week and passed them out. 

Flitwick returned to his desk as the quartet began to idly chat, weaving their bracelets together. Hermione explained about how the act of assembling their own bracelet themselves imbues them with their magic and they supposedly become more receptive to the wearer. Some of her Slytherin acquaintances had recommended she read up on the Magic of Olde to better understand the magical customs. In return Hermione suggested some muggle classics such as The Chronicles on Narnia. 

While the assembly of the bracelets went by fairly quickly, the troubleshooting took a while. The Gryffs spent the hour before dinner getting used to the feeling and trying to decode the messages. They started in Flitwick’s classroom but quickly migrated around the castle to test out the magic’s range. 

Harry had signaled to the group that he was going to dinner early and Hermione signaled back that she’d meet them there; she just had to do something first. The food was just popping up onto the tables from the kitchen when Harry entered. There were only a small number of students from other houses already in the hall, making it easier for Harry to spot the familiar face sitting at Gryffindor's table.

Harry took a seat next to Ginny, who seemed too enthralled with writing in a journal to notice someone was right beside her. Harry cleared his throat and spoke up, causing Ginny to jump and slam the book closed,

“Whoa, whatcha got there Gin?” Ginny blushed hard and shoved the book into her bag situated on her opposite side of where Harry sat.

“Oh, it’s n- nothing, Harry…” She trailed off, not quite meeting his eyes. While he was staying at the Burrow, they had gotten on well, ignoring the occasional shutter response or wide surprised eyes. But even now, Ginny still seemed to get flustered from time to time, leading Harry to brush it off as nothing. 

“Okay, do you want some dinner, then?” Harry held out an extra plate from the small stack in the centre of the table, setting a plate in front of himself. Ginny looked between the outstretched plate and the steaming dish of shepherd’s pie. She reluctantly sighed and nodded, adding a small ‘thank you’ as Harry set the plat in front of her. 

Harry served himself a scoop and passed the spoon to Ginny before speaking up,

“How are classes? Is Hogwarts everything you thought it’d be?” Harry flashed a cheeky smile that immediately faltered upon noticing Ginny’s state. 

Her face was pale, accentuating the slight bags under her eyes, and her hand shook as she brought a small bite to her mouth. Harry didn’t want to over-step because they weren't that close but it was clear to him she was struggling with something. He was broken from his thoughts by her response,

“Classes are fine, I don’t know what Ron was going on about though. He always made the textbooks sound so confusing, but they’re not really…” Harry nodded along.

“I suppose since you’ve grown up with magic and had siblings already go through the curriculum it might seem easier. That’s good though.” Harry chanced a small smile at the young redhead, who barely smiled back. Their weak conversation lapsed into silence as they both picked at their food. 

Not soon after, Hermione walked into the Great Hall with Ron in tow. The former looking exasperated and the latter looking annoyed. Harry nudged Ginny and nodded towards the door. Ginny rolled her eyes and Harry stifled a laugh as the two took a seat across from them. 

“Do I even want to ask?” Harry joked. Hermione huffed and looked at Ron who avoided the action by pilling shepherd’s pie onto his plate.

“For the last time, Hermione, I’m not mental.” Ron stated and Harry looked towards Hermione for an answer at the same time Ginny quipped,

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Ron glared at his sister, who for the first time during their meal, was genuinely smiling.

“Ron, I’m sure you’re not mental, and I’m sure that’s not what Hermione was trying to say.” Hermione was about to speak up but was cut off by Ron’s reply,

“Sure, take her side, you don’t even know what she said.” Harry stared for a moment, but Hermione finally jumped in,

“Ron! Learning disorders don't make you mental, you didn’t even let me explain before you stormed off.” She tried to reason. Quickly filing her own plate she turned to Harry and Ginny,

“When at school before Hogwarts I’d volunteer to be a reading buddy with some of the younger years. Some of them had more trouble than others did, it doesn’t mean they’re less than the other students.” Hermione gave Ron a pointed look, “You have a lot of the same symptoms, Ron. It’s not a bad thing.” Ron continued to grumble and Ginny spoke up,

“What are you talking about Hermione?” Her half-full plate abandoned, she looked up to the older girl.

“Dyslexia. Ron may have dyslexia. I need to do some more research and I need to mail my parents for a book I left at home, but he has a lot of the same symptoms the kids at school did.” Hermione stated. Harry nodded along, pieces clicking into place. That’d explain why Ron struggled so much with classes, if the readings never made sense then certainly writing about them wouldn’t either. 

“I’m not mental, Hermione, I just don’t like reading, okay? Not everyone can be a know-it-all.” Hermione scoffed,

“Ronald, for christ sake, I know you’re not mental! It just means that we can try to make things easier for you to understand if we know that something isn’t working right. You’re not broken or whatever you’re going to say next一'' Ron closed his mouth, his rebuttal dying on his lips “一A lot of people have learning disabilities, the wizarding world just isn’t that up to date with mental health and I guess psychology in general…” The bushy-haired girl theorized. She pulled out her already well loved planner and made a note on a blank page in the back. Harry looked over and noticed that instead of a quill Hermione was writing with a Pilot G2 pen.

“Hey! You got your stationary! how?” Harry pointed to her pen.

“I mail my parents after I saw your pencil crayons and asked them to send me some of my stuff. I got it Wednesday morning at breakfast.” She pinned a look on Harry, both of them knowing that he skipped breakfast that day or else he would have seen her owl arrive. “I can’t believe I used quills all last year, my god I missed my pens. I’ll still do my assignments in quills but it’s just so much easier to write with a pen for notes.” Harry laughed and Hermione joined. The two redheads at the table were too captivated with their muggleborn friend’s pen. 

“How does it work?” Ron asked first and Ginny shot him a look before adding,

“Can I see it?” Hermione nodded and passed the pen over while Ron scowled. Ginny just stuck her tongue out while Hermone started to explain how a pen works. Harry smiled at his friend’s antics, making a mental note to ask Hermione more about dyslexia so they could help Ron. Also noting to himself to talk to Ron about Ginny. She seemed better now than she did when he came in, but problems don’t just magically go away, even if they were wizards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! Hope all is well. I've been thinking / working on this fic a surprising amount this week. Not necessarily writing chapters/editing, but trying to see where/how I want to end it and points I want to add. Some take more long term development (Ron's dyslexia) where as other points are just fun things I wish were in the series more (Hermione and her roommates). I've been doing some research on dyslexia so I accurately write it the best I can, but like always if something is amiss please let me know so I can correct it. 
> 
> More important news tho, I'm 68% through the LEGO Harry Potter game! I Passed 50% on Wednesday (when I got the game from Toast on Sunday...) and finished the story line, now I'm going back and completing everything to completion. I'm pleasantly surprised how well developed the game actually is, I've played the LEGO Indiana Jones games religiously as a kid, but the HP one has a really good hub that's super big (Duh Hogwarts, but still it's cool).
> 
> Hope everyone is well and still trucking along. If there's anything you'd like to see developed in this fic let me know and I'll take it into consideration, I've been going back through comments and seeing what people liked/didn't so I appreciate any feed back. Like always take care friends :-).


	20. Deja Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When a situation occurs again, Harry has a sense of morbid deja vu.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! Hope all is well. This week's chapter is up early this week! Can you tell we are all procrastinating our school work and deciding to work on this instead...
> 
> I spelt Hogsmeade differently everything time in this chapter and Toast and Expresso commented on it every time...   
> Also debate/advice needed, if I'm referring to a professor by their subject (aka the potions professor, charms professor, transfiguration professor etc.) would it be capitalized like a proper noun??? We can't really seen to agree and I want to be consistent lol, same goes to pureblood... Anyways, if anyone has gripes with my grammar or capitalization let me know in the comments.

Harry had meant to give the charmed beads to his identical, redheaded friends as soon as possible, he really did. But that weekend had been the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year. It wasn’t even that Harry had been excited to go either, as he was still a year too young. Besides, he knew he’d never be able to convince the Dursleys to sign off on anything pertaining to magic anyways, so Harry completely forgot about the excursion. 

None of that applied to the twins though. The first Hogsmeade weekend was also notoriously busy because the students were allowed to travel to the small village both Saturday and Sunday, whereas the rest of the outings were only one day or the other. 

The irony was’t lost on Harry. He theoretically would have been able to use the bracelets to let the older boys know he needed to give them their beads, so they could make their bracelets. This was exactly the situation he was trying to remedy with beads. Had Harry realized he would have missed the twins departure for the day when he was desperately trying to fall back asleep in the morning, he would have just stayed awake after his nightmare and gotten a couple extra hours of reading done. The tired boy couldn’t come to regret it though, as uneasy as the extra couples hours had been, they were desperately needed.

In his exhausted stupor, on Saturday morning Harry began searching for the two boys who were no longer even on the castle grounds. He had started with the dungeon kitchen that had slowly become their second hang out space as it was closer than the common room.

Hermione and George had transfigured some of the old desks that sat at the back of the room into a basic living room set. Their squashy couch, love seat, and armchair combo sat at the front of the room where the teacher’s desk would’ve been situated in the old classroom. Due to the usefulness of the chalkboard also at the front of the room, their casual hang out place had turned into an effective space to work on homework together, in addition to their weekly cooking practice. 

Upon his arrival Harry unfortunately found the room in the same array as they had left it following their astronomy tangent earlier in the week when they were reviewing angular momentum. Remnants of Hermione’s explanation were left unerased, Harry shivering at the thought of trying to understand the principles even half as well as her. Turning away from the room, Harry started the journey back up to the main hall from his obscure location in the first sub-dungeon. 

A sense of morbid deja vu flushed through Harry as he turned the last corner to come face to face with none other than Snape. Saving himself from the ungraceful tumble he would have taken again, Harry stepped backwards, looking up at the Potions Professor. 

“I thought you would have learned your lesson last time, Mr. Potter...” Snape trailed off, looking down his nose at Harry, evidently waiting for a response. 

“I’m not running, or late for curfew, sir, so I imagine I must have learnt something last time.” Harry snarked back before his tired brain could comprehend what he was saying. Immediately, Harry turned as red as Ron’s first year Christmas jumper and looked down. Snape let out a puff of air that could have either been a laugh or a scoff, but Harry would bet on the latter.

“Nevertheless, this is twice I’ve found you sneaking around the dungeons. What brings you into my territory?” Harry could hear the eyebrow raise in Snape’s question, looking up only confirmed it. 

“I was looking for Fred or George, professor.” Harry met the man’s eyes.

“And why, per se, would the Weasley Menaces be in the dungeon rather than in Hogsmeade at this moment, Potter?” Harry’s eyes went wide with understanding.

“Hogsmeade,” Harry whispered under his breath and Snape rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, idiot child, where else would the two biggest troublemakers at Hogwarts be than browsing at Zonko's the first chance they could.” 

“I forgot.” Harry dumbly answered.

“Forgot?” Snape questioned.

“Well, it’s not like I’ll ever be able to go, so why remember?” Harry snapped his mouth shut, vowing to himself never to speak when running on less than five hours of sleep again. Snape cocked his head, still looking down his nose at Harry, now with an expression akin to Harrying being a particularly interesting potion ingredient. Changing from hands in pockets to crossed arms, Harry attempted to hide his discomfort at the scrutiny. 

At the sight of his hands, Snape’s posture straightened as if remembering something,  
“How is your cut, Potter?” Harry, who had been running through excuses as to why he’ll never go to Hogsmeade, was caught off guard by the seemingly random question.

“Wha一Oh一” Harry uncrossed his arms to examine the back of his unmarred hand “一It’s fine, healed last week like I said. See,” Harry held up his hand as proof, showcasing only a thin, barely noticeable scar as evidence. Snape held out his hand, silently asking for permission to examine the healed cut. Harry sighed and Snape rolled his eyes.

“Forgive me if I don’t trust the machinations of a twelve year-old, who’s notorious for lying.” Snape bluntly said. Contrary to the lack of patience in his voice, Snape still waited for Harry to offer his hand instead of taking it. 

“It’s not like I look for trouble, it seems to find me.” Harry grumbled as he extended his hand. The Potions Professor scoffed.

“You’re a terrible liar, Potter.”

Only about unimportant things, Harry thought to himself, “Touché.” He voiced to Snape, who seemed to be done looking at his healed hand. Snape’s lips were a thin line and Harry knew he was pushing his luck. Deciding to leave the scenario before he said something that actually landed him in hot water, he politely excused himself.

Making his way upstairs, he corrected his course towards the library. Remembering an overzealous Hermione and slightly miffed Ron, Harry could guess how he’d find his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Friends! Happy weekend. Hope everyone can find a break from their week, even if it's just for a little bit. Breaks are important! 
> 
> I wanted to say thank you to everyone who's been reading and supporting this fic, we passed 6000 hits this week and I'm ecstatic! Also good news/bit sad for me, the position I was applying to for the spring/summer job is only summer basically because there's no work in the spring (thanks covid) but that means there's less of a deadline for me to finish this or go on hiatus. The summer portion is still planning on running so I'm happy. 
> 
> I've been planning and thinking about this a lot and I genuinely love how much this is on my mind. Although my Marvel fic is still bouncing around in my head hehehe. 
> 
> I'm 80% through the Lego game, I've played a bunch this morning and I'm near the end! 
> 
> Hope everyone is well, if theres any questions, concerns, or queries let me know in the comments, I love hearing from y'all and I do take them into consideration when planning and writing, so if there's anything you'd like to say, hit me up! Like always, take care friends :-).


	21. Broken Up Like a Boy Band

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry meets his friends in the library, collectively complain about homework and then goes down for lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends, happy Sunday.
> 
> This chapter was kinda mess to write (I love it now dw) because there wasn't a lot of plot so it was really short but then we got some new characters and then it got better from there. 
> 
> Lots of funny beta notes, Espresso has taken to one of the new characters (a Claw of course) like a house on fire.  
> "BRO IS THIS MAN A CLAW???????" -Espresso
> 
> "YO HE'S A CLAW LETS GOOOOOO" -Espresso, but a little later reading
> 
> "ive had terry for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him i would kill everyone in this room and then myself" -Toast  
> "my sole mission upon this planet is to protect this ravenclaw boy with my life" -Espresso

When Harry walked into the library, he was flagged down by Madam Pince.

“I’ve relocated your friends to the second conference room-” the old librarian turned away before adding, “do tell them that there’s a booking in half an hour, so whatever argument they are having will have to be put on pause at 11:30. I do not tolerate yelling in my library.” Harry had expected there to be a disagreement, but he didn’t expect it to be loud enough to be relocated into one of the soundproofed rooms. 

One evening, when they were fixing books together, Madam Pince relayed him stories about some of the antics that happened in her library. Oftentimes, when groups became too rambunctious, she would levitate their chairs right into a conference room. He was a little disappointed he missed the look on Hermione’s face when she realized what Madam Pince was doing, but figured Ron would relay the story. 

“I’ll let them know, Madam.” Harry nodded towards the lady and turned towards the left, where the conference rooms were situated. Quickly locating the conference room, Harry opened the door and slid into the room.

The scene in front of him indicated that Madam Pince had downplayed the scene they probably made in the main area. Hermione was gesturing wildly with hand written parchments clutched in one hand and a pulverized piece of chalk in the other. Ron was pacing the end of the room, face red, tie askew. Neville sat across from Susan Bones and Terry Boot, with Lockheart’s books sprawled around them on the long conference table. 

Ron was mid yell and the room fell into silence as Harry entered. Opting to sit near Neville as to not disturb to other two engaged in a lion fight, Harry extended a hand to Terry,

“Hey, I guess we haven’t formally met, I’m Harry. Neville says you’ve really helped him with his homework.” Harry smiled at the short, brown haired boy.

“Terry, Neville says you’ve been a good friend, too.” The shy boy offered a small smile and Harry turned to Susan.

“Hey Susan, still working on Lockhearts ‘scavenger hunt’?” Harry remembered Neville mentioning working on it with her for a couple hours earlier in the week, but they hadn’t been able to finish it. Susan in response just dropped her head in her hands and groaned,

“Harry, this class is killing me. Great Merlin above, we’ve been working on it for so long, why do the questions have to be so damn specific?” Harry settled in beside his friend and looked over to where Hermione was reading over her notes and Ron silently fuming.

“Give them a minute, this is the quietest they’ve been since we got here.” Neville laughed as the two sent glares at the small group.

“Hermione keeps talking about these muggle things and I don’t understand and she won’t explain.” Ron spoke up.

“I’m trying to explain what I know, Ron, you’re just not listening. I asked my mum to send some more information on dyslexia and some suggestions to help, but even though Hedwig is fast, I probably won't hear anything back until Monday night.” Hermione ignored Ron’s scowl and turned to Harry, “Thanks again for letting me send her, Harry.” 

“No problem ‘Mione, she doesn’t have much to deliver during the school year, so I’m sure she’s grateful for the exercise.” Hermione turned back to her notes and Ron huffed.

“I don’t see what all the huff is about, I’m fine, I don’t need fixing.” He crossed his arms and Harry looked at his red-headed friend.

“Ron, I’m sure she’s not trying to fix you. ‘Mione, it’s probably better if you hold back until Hedwig gets back with your mum’s response. I bet if we all work on the stupid hunt together, we’d be able to finished before we’re kicked out.” Susan sent a pleading look to Hermione who laughed.

“I know what you’re doing, Harry. But I suppose since it‘s so long and I haven’t finished it yet that we could help each other out without it being considered cheating….” She put her notes away in her bag and took a seat beside Susan, with Ron opting to sit next to Terry. 

“Hermione, it’s called group work, not cheating.” Terry spoke. Everyone save for Hermione stifled their laughters, the bushy brunette looking on in disappointment at her friends. 

“Fine, laugh all you want, I can go now and leave you goons to do it yourselves.” Hermione responded smugly. Hermione conceded at the instant cacophony of pleads and groans from everyone and they started dividing up the work. 

A crisp knock on the door signaled that their half hour was up and it was time to leave. Books were closed, and parchment was packed up. Hermione tentatively pointed out that since it was only 11:30 the Great Hall should be fairly empty, especially with all the missing students at Hogsmeade. Harry nodded in agreement and Hermione untensed, sending a grateful smile towards her friend. 

The group made their way down to the Great Hall to see that Hermione was in fact correct; it was nearly empty. Only a handful of professors sat at the front and a couple of students sat at each table. Once met with the sight of the barren hall Terry spoke up,

“There’s no rules about sitting at other tables you know, I read it in Hogwarts: A History. Do you think I could sit with you guys?” Terry gestured to two upper years occupying his Ravenclaw table. 

“Sure, Terry, we could go over to the Puff table, Hannah and Justin are already there.” Susan gestured over to her two friends that were waving the group over. As they weaved between stools, Ron leaned into Harry,

“Are we actually allowed to be at other house tables?” Ron asked.

“I think so, if Terry says yes and Hermione didn’t disagree with him, it must be true.” Ron paused a moment,

“How come we’ve never seen other people sit at other tables, then?” 

“I guess because we’ve never noticed or that people don’t really have friends in other houses.” Harry reasoned. Both of them quieted down as they made it to the end of the Puff table. 

“Hey Hannah, Justin. I brought some friends for lunch. You know Neville-” the two students nodded, “-I’m sure you’ve heard of Harry, and his two friends Ron and Hermione.” Susan introduced them. They settled down, Neville, Hannah, and Ron on one side and Harry, Hermione, Susan, and Justin on the other. 

“Hey, nice to actually meet you. I think we have defence and some history classes together.” Justin greeted. As Susan reached for a sandwich she groaned,

“Don’t even mention defence, Justin.” The boy laughed as he passed over the ladle for the soup that Ron had been eyeing since they took their seats. 

“It’s not that b…” Justin didn’t finish his sentence at the sight of everyone staring at him. “Okay maybe it’s not great, but just do something else in class. Some of us have started learning some of the second year spells from one of the textbooks from Hannah’s older sister.” Harry perked up. Swallowing his bite of sandwich, he asked,

“You’re learning spells?” Justin nodded and the two fell into conversation.

Hermione turned to Terry as Harry went on about the differences between offensive and defensive spells, “So you’ve read Hogwarts: A History?” She asked.

“Yeah, it was a good read, too. Probably read it in my first week here last year. It helped me find my classes once you realize how the building is layed out.” Hermione nodded along.

“I totally agree, and the history is just fascinating. Shame about the founders breaking up like some boy band, though.” Terry’s eyebrows shot up and Hermione quickly attempted to explain her comment, “A boy band is a muggle band normally targeted around pre-teen girls, but they often end up breaking up because-” Terry cut her off.

“Hermione, I know what a boy band is. I just found it funny that you called the Founders one.” Hermione started laughing,

“Well, it's true!” She continued. “I wondered what happened to them after they broke up, did one of them go off to have a solo career, or will they just forever be known as the Founders of Hogwarts?” 

“Like when an actor is only known for a role they played as a kid, but have acted in a bunch of other things since then.” Terry added.

“Exactly! Did Salazar Slytherin have a music career that no one knew about after he left the Founders?” Terry took a sip of soup just as Hermione spoke up and he choked on the soup. 

“God, Hermione you’re hilarious.” Terry wheased after recovering from his aspirated soup. 

“I’m just glad you understand, there’s so many things that the purebloods just don’t get.” Hermione admitted.

“Yeah, us muggle borns have to stick together.” Terry admitted and Hermione beamed.

“Yeah, we do.” The two fell back into their meal, and Harry looked over at Hermione who was still smiling. He caught the last half of the conversation and was Happy that Hermione had someone else she could connect with. It was nice to know they weren't alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends, glad to have another chapter up.
> 
> Less plot driven (honestly the main plot of this is just school life so I guess not really), but funny nonetheless. Want to shout out LaughingFox for educating me on proper nouns, and I actually capitalized something while editing because of your comment so thanks! 
> 
> Welcome Terry, Susan, and Hannah to the roster of characters who are under appreciated and deserve the magical world! 
> 
> If anyone has characters or plot points they want written in shoot me a comment, at this point I'm writing everything from scratch until I finish the time jump in my original draft so I have a bullet list of things to write I can easily add to :-). 
> 
> I have finished the Lego Harry Potter Wii game and will be returning it to Toast in the near future. I need to find the second one now.....


End file.
